Spiced Chilli Butter
Spiced Chilli Butter is a versatile condiment that’s put together in a matter of minutes. Inspired by Tex-Mex flavours, including chilli, garlic, cumin, paprika, and oregano, the punchy butter is perfect for topping corn-on-the-cob, chicken, steak, fish, baked potatoes, steamed veg, savoury pancakes and waffles, or in garlic bread. In fact, just about anything that’s enhanced with a hit of rich, buttery spice and chilli heat.
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I’ve been making versions of this brilliant Spiced Chilli Butter for ages. There’s something so satisfying about its combination of rich butter (and I could eat even plain, salted butter in lumps like a piece of cheese!) with chilli, warm spices, garlic, and herbs. It’s so good atop a steak, baked potato, and especially a fresh cob of in-season, sweet and crunchy corn.
But what’s finally prompted me to post the oh-so-delicious but dead easy recipe is that it’s absolutely fantastic with my new creation for this year’s Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day: fluffy Corn, Cheese & Spinach Pancakes.
With chilli heat, sweetcorn, plus spinach for vibrant colour, a stack of these pancakes makes a wonderful breakfast, brunch or even dinner topped with my Spiced Chilli Butter with its Tex-Mex inspired flavours.
COMPOUND/FLAVOURED BUTTERS
The French culinary term for a butter flavoured with various herbs, spices, or other ingredients is beurre composé. This is usually translated as compound butter and the most well-known ones include maître d’hôtel butter (parsley and lemon), Café de Paris butter (can contain many different herbs and spices plus anchovies, Worcestershire sauce, mustard), and beurre à la bourguignonne (that’s good old garlic butter to you and me).
But you can make your own flavoured butters as simple or as complicated as you like. The only limit is your imagination!
I’ve already posted recipes for umami-packed Miso Butter, wonderful, seasonal Wild Garlic Butter and now, here’s punchy Spiced Chilli Butter.
SPICED CHILLI BUTTER
You’ll find a recipe card at the end with ingredient amounts, but I suggest you just use it as a template. Because the joy of creating any flavoured butter is that you can tweak it to suit your own tastes and to match whatever you’re going to eat it with.
The only thing you absolutely need is, of course, butter. I always buy salted butter as I much prefer its rounded flavour. But you can use unsalted, adding a pinch of salt at the end if you like.
So you can blend it with the other ingredients easily, the butter must be quite soft. Some people add a touch of olive or other oil to lighten it, but I usually prefer a pure butter flavour. As I tend to make small amounts, I mix the ingredients by hand. For larger batches you could use a food processer, but don’t over-process or the ingredients will lose their individual identities.
INGREDIENTS
For my Spiced Chilli Butter, I’ve used what I think of Tex-Mex flavours. That means you’ll find a similar combination of herbs and spices to those I’ve used in recipes such as Chilli Bean Cheese Toastie, Chicken Chilli, Black Bean Chilli, and Spicy Bean Balls.
You’ll need:
- Garlic cloves
- Red chilli (can be replaced with chilli flakes/powder or red pepper flakes
- Coriander leaf (or another fresh herb)
- Paprika (smoked Spanish for me, or you could swap in Hungarian)
- Ground cumin
- Dried oregano
- Black pepper
MAKING & STORING
To make Spiced Chilli Butter, all you do is put the soft butter in a small bowl and start breaking it down with a fork. Now add the rest of the ingredients and work them into the butter until everything is well combined: you might want to switch to a silicone spoon in the final stages. Have a taste and, if you think it needs it, add a little more of any ingredient and/or a pinch of salt.
The butter’s now ready for use, although it will probably benefit from being chilled. You could just pop it in the fridge, covered in its bowl. But it’s much easier to use if you first roll it into a log for slicing.
Scrape onto a piece of baking paper or cling film and shape the butter into a rough cylinder. Next, tightly roll it up in the paper or film and twist the ends to secure. The butter can now go into the fridge until firm and sliceable. But it can be kept there for up to 3 days if you like.
For longer storage, you can freeze this and most other flavoured butters. So I can take out just as much as I need, I cut it into portion-sized pieces before freezing.
USES FOR SPICED CHILLI BUTTER
As I said at the beginning, this flavoursome butter goes brilliantly with my fluffy Corn, Cheese & Spinach Pancakes. But, once you’ve tried it, I guarantee you’ll come up with loads more uses. I love it melting on a charred rib eye steak, crisp-skinned roast chicken, nestling in a hot baked potato sprinkled with cheese, or to enliven simple boiled or steam veg like carrots and peas.
Other ideas include melting it onto savoury waffles, spreading it on toast and topping with a poached egg. Or how about replacing the garlic parsley butter in a classic garlic bread? Or the miso butter in these stuffed mushrooms?
In fact, I think Spiced Chilli Butter would work on just about anything that’s enhanced with a hit of rich, buttery spice and chilli heat.
Have you made this recipe? Please leave a comment and rating to let me know how it went.
Spiced Chilli Butter
Inspired by Tex-Mex flavours, this punchy butter is perfect for topping corn-on-the-cob, chicken, steak, baked potatoes, savoury pancakes and waffles, or in garlic bread. In fact, just about anything that benefits from a hit of buttery spice with chilli heat.
It's recommended that you read the accompanying blog post before starting the recipe.
Ingredients
- 75 g soft butter (salted or unsalted)
- 2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
- 1 red chilli (finely chopped, or chilli flakes/powder, red pepper flakes)
- ½ tbsp coriander leaf (finely chopped)
- ½ tsp paprika (smoked or not)
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- ½ tsp dried oregano
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- salt (optional)
Instructions
-
Put the soft butter into a small bowl and break it down a little with a fork.
Add the rest of the ingredients and work them into the butter until everything is well combined: you might want to switch to a silicone spoon in the final stages.
Taste and add more of any ingredient until the flavour is to your liking.
If you've used unsalted butter, you may wish to add a pinch of salt.
-
To store, scrape onto a piece of baking paper or cling film, shape into a rough cylinder, then roll up into a log, twisting the ends to secure.
Store in the fridge and use within 2 - 3 days or can be frozen (cut into portions before freezing if liked).
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