We Style-Examined 11 Grocery store Unsalted Butters—Right here Are Our Favorites

You don’t want me to sit down right here and let you know why butter is sweet and necessary, do you? I don’t have the power, you don’t have the time, and all of us have already got 17 sticks of the stuff ready for us after we get dwelling. I don’t imply to suggest I—otherwise you—get dwelling from a really exhausting day and nibble by way of a butter bar or 17 butter bars simply to really feel one thing, however ought to that be the case, deeply why butter is sweet and necessary…and why it’s so necessary to inventory your self up with good butter.

And so, as we’re wont to do, the SE group has pulled collectively 11 manufacturers of unsalted butter that you just’re more likely to discover in your native grocery store, and methodically, empirically, scientifically! tasted its method by way of all of them in a quest to establish the perfect. And we cherished each minute of doing it!

The Contenders

• Finlandia Butter Imported Unsalted
• Vermont Creamery Cultured Unsalted Butter
• Land O Lakes Unsalted Butter
• Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter, Unsalted 
• Beurre D’Isigny French AOP Unsalted Butter
• Natural Valley Unsalted Cultured Butter
• 365 Butter, Unsalted 
• Very important Farms Unsalted Butter
• Horizon Natural Unsalted Butter
• Breakstone’s Unsalted Butter
• Plugrà Unsalted

The Standards

Butter’s scent ought to be good. Recommendations of grass, cream, and far-away film theaters are all good issues. Whiffs of oil, acid, and close by film theaters are considerably much less good. All of the above applies to style as nicely. Nature: good! Not nature: oy!

As for the colour of butter, this group went in satisfied they might establish Kerrygold from a rocket ship (in a very good and comforting method) due to its signature yellow coloration, so we aimed to remove this variable from the style check itself as a way to decide what really tasted the perfect. All this to say: I spent a really very long time guffawing within the check kitchen galley making an attempt to unfold equal 1/4-inch layers of 11 totally different butters onto many, many salt-free saltines after which flipping them the wrong way up into little communal bowls whereas Slacking “do NOT look by way of the holes of the saltines when tasting—this can be a severe style check!!” at my coworkers frantically. (Credit score the place it’s due: Our new senior social media editor Kelli very graciously helped me unfold butter after she noticed me struggling. Don’t fear—she didn’t see the important thing to the check and did finally check sight unseen.) It seems this group enjoys all colours of unsalted butter!

Additionally value noting: There must be nary a hindrance to utilizing an unsalted butter, whether or not that be for baking, for greasing, or for, nicely, buttering. It is best to be capable to unwrap it, dip into, and unfold it with ease. It shouldn’t take bodily effort or dexterity to evenly coat your required floor with the stuff. With the intention to gauge every pattern’s true spreadability, we let the blocks sit out at room temperature for simply over three hours. By the point we sampled, every of the 11 butters measured temps someplace between 57-62 levels.  

This! wasn’t! straightforward! No, cease! It wasn’t! In the event you say you want butter a lot, you attempt consuming back-to-back pats of the stuff slapped onto unsalted crackers, all of the whereas straining, straining your jaw to notice all of your helpfully pithy butter sample-specific nonsense. Then we’ll speak!!!

The Large Image

If there’s one factor to remove from this tasting, it’s that there wasn’t an enormous distinction amongst any of those butters. Beneath, you’ll see a scored rating and feedback from tasters, and sure, technically, that’s how these butters scored. However we had been all struck by the truth that it was fairly rattling arduous to inform any of those butters aside, other than the faint tang of a number of the cultured choices. It’s value noting that just about the entire scores hovered near a really slim one-point vary.

Have been there variations? Positive. Have been they dramatic, life-altering, or a minimum of butter-purchasing altering? No, not likely. There have been variations and a few of us did really feel that one or two manufacturers really rose above the remainder, however additionally they all kind of tasted like…butter. 

Take that as excellent news: Method the butter part of the market freed from the form of decision-making nervousness that may freeze you within the cereal part for 43 minutes. You actually can’t go unsuitable.

The Rankings

Very important Farms Unsalted Butter, 3.84/5

A powerful spherical of applause for this man proper right here. It smelled candy, however not too candy. It tasted grassy and milky, however not too grassy and milky. It ate easily, it wasn’t greasy, it evoked photographs of rolling hills and mild background cows. It made a nasty factor (see: previous salt-free saltines) higher. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out this butter has the very best butterfat content material of the group at a whopping 84 p.c (the others ranged anyplace from 78.6 to 83).

Plugrà Unsalted, 3.6/5

Megan described this providing as a “sturdy buttery butter,” which I like as each a butter style check descriptor and a tongue tornado. Regardless of the room temperature-ness of all of it, Plugrà held simply agency sufficient. Every tester famous and accepted of its solidity and distinct dairy taste. Daniel wrote: “Good!” which, as at all times, felt necessary sufficient by itself to incorporate. IYKYK, and many others., and many others.

Finlandia Butter Imported Unsalted, 3.6/5

There comes a time in each Critical Eats when Genevieve identifies a pattern as “like what I feel ‘the factor we’re testing’ tastes like.” This one is what Genevieve thinks butter tastes like! It’s “calmly, calmly candy” and the aroma was putting in, like, a pastoral method. This was one other sturdy butter; Daniel famous its dense texture whereas tasting, and it held its personal for lengthy after the style check concluded (See: It was seamless to deal with and re-wrap). Finlandia specifies its unsalted butter runs between 82-83% butterfat, for what it’s value.

Horizon Natural Unsalted Butter, 3.42/5

A creamy but impartial providing among the many bunch. This was a departure from richness and hay bales butter and an introduction to “I’m late, I’ve nothing on this fridge besides butter, that’s OK, a buttered English muffin is one in every of life’s finest issues typically, that is gonna be nice” butter. It was thinner, simpler to unfold than the above choices, and smelled completely of dairy and dairy alone.

Breakstone’s Unsalted Butter, 3.33/5

Three of our testers made a degree of mentioning the smoooooothness of this butter. They famous how “clean,” “actually clean,” and “very clean” it was, to be particular! Megan additionally specified her approval of its “gentle buttery, virtually nutty scent,” whereas Genevieve appreciated the butter’s “plain and ease.”

Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter, Unsalted, 2.8/5

…There comes a time in each Critical Eats style check when every participant simply is aware of they’ll pinpoint their real-world favourite. This group of Kerrygold lovers went in assured and got here out much less so. They loved Kerrygold, to be clear (its cultured tang, its funky aftertaste, its pretty texture), however they didn’t routinely or collectively pinpoint it as their favourite.

Land O Lakes Unsalted Butter, 2.75/5

It’s right here we start to enter “it’s not you, it’s me” territory. We are able to’t notably let you know why we’re not prepared to maneuver in with Land O Lakes, however we recognize it and may’t image our lives with out it, we swear. (Megan loved its “good, candy buttery scent.” In any other case, the stuff was pleasantly impartial. And typically impartial is precisely what you need.)

Beurre D’Isigny French AOP Unsalted Butter, 2.75/5

The expertise of consuming Beurre D’Isigny French AOP Unsalted Butter on a salt-free saltine, from what I can glean from my coworkers’ notes, is kinda like chugging film popcorn butter and then consuming the popcorn itself. It’s not a nasty factor—you get to expertise butter scent and style, you get a pleasant little snack within the course of; it’s all simply very sensorily intense (gonna chalk that as much as the lactic starter listed within the substances of this flavorful cultured butter).

365 Butter, Unsalted, 2.6/5

At this level, our group was ready for a minimum of some form of dairy-driven scent with every pattern. This one didn’t scent like something, which in some methods labored in its favor: “A surprisingly buttery taste for a butter that has no discernible aroma,” Megan wrote. Daniel gave up on giving aroma notes about 5 samples in the past, noting for this providing that he “actually couldn’t inform any of those aside.” Once more, take it from me: Excessive reward from the Critical Eats group. Kinda.

Vermont Creamery Cultured Unsalted Butter, 2.5/5

Neutrality on neutrality on neutrality right here. “Impartial, however good?” stated Daniel. “Good for cooking whenever you need a extra impartial taste,” opined Megan. “Nothingness!” wrote Kelli, which, in a method, is a synonym for “neutralness,” yeah? 

Natural Valley Unsalted Cultured Butter, 2.34/5

Curiously, Natural Valley Unsalted Cultured Butter has the identical share butterfat as our top-ranked choice (84 p.c). And but…they didn’t style, unfold, or eat the identical.

Our Tasting Methodology

All style assessments are carried out utterly hidden and with out dialogue. Tasters style samples in random order. For instance, taster A could style pattern 1 first, whereas taster B will style pattern 6 first. That is to stop palate fatigue from unfairly giving anyone pattern a bonus. Tasters are requested to fill out tasting sheets rating the samples for numerous standards that change from pattern to pattern. All information is tabulated and outcomes are calculated with no editorial enter as a way to give us essentially the most neutral illustration of precise outcomes attainable.