How to Choose the Best Butter

Butter is an essential ingredient for everyday cooking and enjoying at our table. But there are some pronounced differences between the butters consumed in Europe and the ones sold in the USA.

In most of Europe, there are two types of butter that would grace your table and enhance your cooking. The European cow’s milk butter has 82% fat content, while the USA cow-milk butter has only 80% butter content, and that 2% certainly makes for a taste difference. While most of the European butter is sweet (unsalted), USA butter comes either salted or unsalted.

In addition to the cow’s milk butter of Western Europe, there is also (especially in the Eastern Mediterranean) sheep’s milk-made butter that is much sharper in taste than the cow’s milk. It comes only as an unsalted butter and is usually cultured, while cow’s milk butter could be either cultured or uncultured. There is also goat’s milk butter, but it would be too strongly flavored for the average person.

When I was growing up, my mother gave us sheep’s milk butter (provio voutiro) to slather on our toast as a breakfast treat, and I still love a piece of peasant-style, toasted white bread with a crunchy crust topped with sweet butter and peach, apricot, or sour cherry preserves on top. Though I have been unable to purchase sheep’s milk butter in my area, it’s available through the internet and in certain cities in the central U.S.

At the supermarkets near me, I have a choice of brands to pick from that are both domestic and imported. What I usually purchase to slather on my toast is either French Beurre de Charentes or Irish Kerrygold, Ireland’s most ubiquitous brand.

There is also Plugra available at my local supermarket, which is an American-made, European-style butter with 82% fat content. But because that butter is made from the milk of corn and cereal-fed cows as opposed to the grass-fed Irish butter, it has more beta carotene naturally. So both the look and the taste is different.     

There are other brands of Irish butter imported into the U.S., some with fat content as high as 90%. And, of course, more fat means more flavor.

Butter with high fat content will also last longer if left on a countertop and not refrigerated, but that’s a practice I don’t recommend. The longer shelf life happens because there is less water, which makes for less opportunity for bacteria to breed. So high fat doesn’t promote bacteria growth.

The amount of salt in salted butter also plays a role, as salt is an excellent preservative. If stored correctly in a refrigerator, butter will have a very long life. And, of course, butter can be frozen without affecting its quality and taste.

Much of the imported Irish butter differs from American-produced butter because it’s usually uncultured. Cultured butter is made from cream that has been treated with live cultures, similar to those used to make yogurt or cheese. So the butter is fermented before it’s churned. The result is a thicker butter with a flavor that’s more tangy compared to butter made from uncultured cream, which seems to be blander and sweeter.

A visual clue that the butter is made from grass-fed animals is its color. The color comes from the grass the animal feeds on. If it’s close to a bright golden hue, the cow has spent much time in a pasture feeding on grass. All grass contains beta carotene, which gives the butter that luscious golden look.

But some regional American brands have been known to add food coloring to mimic that golden look. Nevertheless, they can’t fake the taste!

You can experiment with different butters until you find the brand you like best, but I do recommend European brands. And if you’ve never tried sheep’s milk butter and can find it, I suggest giving it a taste.