- Chefs agree that Kerrygold unsalted is the best grocery-store butter thanks to its rich flavor, golden color and smooth texture.
- Its 82% butterfat content makes it creamy, spreadable and flavorful without being too heavy for baking or cooking.
- Tillamook and Plugrà also earn praise for their creamy textures and balanced fat levels, making them great everyday choices as well.
Butter is the key to so many types of recipes. It’s vital for baking to create a texture and flavor worthy of a Parisian croissant or a delicate buttercream. It adds flavor and richness to soups and roasts, and it makes eggs velvety. There seem to be infinite brands and varieties when it comes to butter, so we asked four chefs what their favorite grocery-store butter is and why. They all said the same thing!
Chefs’ Pick for Favorite Butter
Walmart. EatingWell design.
Kerrygold Unsalted Pure Irish Butter came out as the clear winner among chefs. The combination of flavor, ease of use and high fat content make it the best overall choice for everyday butter. “This is my everyday butter that I use for my home cooking. The deep color alone is beautiful and tells me it’s high in fat content from grass-fed cows. It’s smooth and buttery but mild enough for all applications,” said Melissa King, Top Chef star and author of Cook Like a King. The lovely yellow does make Kerrygold look good, so it’s nice to know it isn’t there just for show.
Food Network star Chef Joe Sasto also prefers Kerrygold for everyday baking and added, “Generally I am always reaching for and stocking unsalted butter.” Kerrygold’s unsalted butter has an 82% butterfat content, higher than the salted version, which is 80%. Many chefs prefer to add their own salt while cooking, so they reach for unsalted.
While 82% butterfat seems like plenty, some butters have an even higher percentage. To chefs, even a 1% difference matters. Andy Ribelin, culinary director, Roamer Hospitality, in Philadelphia, PA, chooses Kerrygold because it is a “great lower-fat-content butter, still offers lots of flavor, yet allows for the heart to keep pumping!” So while there are higher-fat butters, finding the happy medium works best for him.
Ann Ziata, chef at the Institute of Culinary Education’s New York City campus, chooses Kerrygold because it “is so rich and flavorful that it can easily outshine the bread. It doesn’t crumble and is nicely spreadable even while on the chilly side. Kerrygold is made from grass-fed Irish cows, whose milk is high in beta-carotene and omega-3 fatty acids, which give the butter its gold hue and pleasantly grassy flavor.”
Why Chefs Love Kerrygold
No matter the brand of butter, the chefs all were able to pinpoint what made a certain type of butter “best”: fat. Besides that many chefs like to add their own salt and therefore prefer unsalted butter, the butterfat content of Kerrygold’s unsalted butter is to their liking. Ziata said Kerrygold topped her list because, besides the nutritional value, color and flavor, “it’s also quite decadent at 82% butterfat, while other butters are at 80%.”
Her Institute of Culinary Education colleague, Trung Vu, chef-instructor of Pastry & Baking Arts, added some context and said, “American butter is required to have a minimum fat content of 80% and most companies will meet just that bare minimum, producing a butter that is less rich than its European counterparts. Most European-style butters have a fat content around 83%, a full-flavored and delicious spreadable butter that is also great for most baking projects.” While you might assume that more fat is better, having a high but not too high fat content is ideal for most uses.
Other Top Butter Picks
Trailing only slightly behind Kerrygold was Oregon-made Tillamook and U.S.-made, European-style Plugrà. Tillamook has 81% butterfat, but it doesn’t lose flavor or texture, according to the chefs. Ribelin said he specifically uses Tillamook Sea Salted Extra Creamy Butter because it’s “great as a spread butter for bread, pancakes [and] bagels due to its extra creamy texture and high butterfat content.” Sasto also listed it among his favorite grocery-store butters.
Plugrà tied for second place and was named by Ribelin and Vu among their favorites. Ribelin says that Plugrà, like Kerrygold, has 82% fat “offering great flavor and LOTS of punch when baking.” Vu couldn’t say enough good things about Plugrà, including that his “favorite butter from the grocery store is Plugrà. It has a smooth, creamy and spreadable texture, a deep yellow color with a rich and slightly sweet flavor.” He says it’s “ideal for making my favorite pastries: croissants” because the extra water “produces more steam in the oven, just the right amount to give slightly better leavening and produce a lighter croissant without sacrificing rich, buttery flavor.” Plugrà butter is made from American cow’s milk that contains no added hormones, which is another huge plus.
Vital Farms and Organic Valley were two other butters that came up. Both are widely available in most grocery stores. Vital Farms beats out even the European butters with 85% fat in its Pasture-Raised Butter with Sea Salt & Avocado Oil, and Organic Valley is aligned with the US standard of 80%.
The Bottom Line
What matters most to chefs is the taste, and the consensus is that taste, in butter at least, is dictated by fat content. The chefs said that their favorite butter had 82% to 83% butterfat, as compared to the 80% that is in most American commercial butters. While Kerrygold unsalted butter came out on top in terms of votes, the chefs had several other favorites that you can buy at the grocery store, including Tillamook and Plugrà.
