- 8 tablespoons (½ cup/1 stick) butter
- ¼ cup (60ml) flaxseed oil*
- Salt**
Healthier Spreadable Butter
Yield: ¾ cup
This easy-to-make condiment adds spreadable convenience and a dose of heart healthy Omega-3s to good old butter! Spread it on toast, muffins, baked potatoes and more.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Soften the butter at room temperature. (To expedite this process, you can chop or slice the butter into small pieces.)
- Blend the butter and oil at medium speed until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed, and then beat at high speed for a minute or so to ensure the mixture is smooth and creamy. (A hand mixer works well for this job. In a pinch you could briskly beat with a fork or small whisk.)
- Salt to taste. (See notes for details.)
- At this point, the mixture will seem a little runny. Refrigerate until it reaches a spreadable consistency. Flax butter should be stored, covered, in the refrigerator where it will maintain its freshness for several months.
Notes
*You could substitute olive oil, although the mixture will be somewhat firmer once refrigerated as olive oil becomes semi-hard when refrigerated. A coconut oil/butter mixture may sound appealing, but coconut oil hardens when cold so the finished product would not be spreadable.
**You may start with salted or unsalted butter and add salt accordingly to mimic salted butter if desired. (Or totally omit it if preferred.) A pound of salted butter typically contains 1¼ teaspoon of salt, or a little over ¼ teaspoon per stick. So for this spread, when I start with a stick of salted butter and a quarter cup of oil, I add a lightly rounded ⅛ teaspoon of salt to mimic salted butter. You can certainly adjust to taste, using kosher, sea or table salt as desired. When spreading on toast, I especially enjoy the flavor of this spread when salted.
A few more details...
•If you’d like an even softer butter than this recipe creates, you may add additional oil up to equal parts oil and butter. Note that the flavor will change slightly as more oil is added. The mixture will also be soupier when blended but will firm up when refrigerated. Also remember to adjust the salt in this case.
•Last but not least, I avoid unfiltered flaxseed oil in this recipe as it has a stronger taste.