What is the best butter to buy? The best butter is more than just a cooking lubricant (wink). It’s rich, creamy, a little grassy, and so good you want to eat it like cheese. These are the best butter brands—salted, unsalted, and flavored—that deserve a place in your butter dish.
Are you in the salted butter camp or do you rep team unsalted butter? If you think the answer is obvious, ask your friends. You might find out that it’s more of a charged question than you thought. The Sporked team was divided but leaned toward salted. Personally, though, I think you need both. There are occasions for unsalted butter (spreading on cinnamon raisin toast or if you’re following a recipe to the letter, for example) and there are times for salted butter (it certainly belongs in cookies and if you’re riffing a recipe or basting a steak, it’s an easy way to add instant seasoning).
Either way, though, you can’t just buy any butter. You need the best salted butter and the best unsalted butter. And, while we’re at it, you also need the best truffle butter, the best garlic herb butter, and the best olive oil butter (if that’s your thing). You might as well toss your veggies because your crisper drawer is about to be your butter drawer.
Over the course of not one, not two, but three taste tests, we sampled both salted and unsalted specimens, as well as some flavored butters. Sitting down to a table filled with butter, armed with just a knife and some crackers (in order to test spreadability), was a dream come true. I was finally free to eat slices of pure butter. Here’s an updated list of all the best tasting butter you can buy at the grocery store—now including the best French butter, Italian butter, and lightly salted butter.
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- Land O Lakes Butter with Olive Oil & Sea Salt
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Here’s why some people choose butter with olive oil: It lowers the saturated fat levels in the product. Of course, some people just prefer the flavor. I know whenever I’m sauteing up mushrooms I always use both olive oil and butter. It just works better. I haven’t looked into the science. Anyway, for all of those people, a few brands have started making pre-mixed olive oil butter. And Land O Lakes is the best tasting butter-olive oil we tried. It’s silky smooth and the sea salt is subtle. It finishes with rich and fruity olive oil notes. If you’re tired of mixing butter with olive oil on your own time, Land O Lakes is the best butter brand.
Credit: Liv Averett / Target
- Challenge Butter Unsalted
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This is the best unsalted butter for everyday consumption. (If you want the best unsalted butter for fancy occasions, check out our #5 pick for the best Italian butter.) Even Sporked’s Jordan Myrick—who doesn’t think unsalted butter should exist—liked this butter. It’s very fresh tasting—the grassiest of the bunch. It’s some of the best butter for toast if you prefer unsalted butter to salted butter, and it’s good for everyday cooking, too. I tend to cook with unsalted butter more than salted butter, and this is the best butter I’ve found for cooking things like scallops or scrambled eggs, or melting onto soon-to-be-loaded-up baked potatoes. It’s a workhorse. Or a workcow, I guess?
Credit: Merc / Target
- Naturli’ Vegan Block
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Get ready to have your socks knocked clean off by a vegan butter. It’s not the easiest vegan butter to find, but it’s worth the search. It’s that good. It spreads like butter and it tastes so much like lightly salted butter. It’s made with a mix of oils: shea, coconut, rapeseed, and almond. And somehow they all come together to taste creamy and like real dairy. It should be called I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter—because I truly can’t believe it. It’s a total vegan dupe for real, good butter.
Read the full ranking of the best vegan butter
Credit: Liv Averett / H-E-B
- Kerrygold Garlic & Herb
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A lot of the flavored butters we tried ended up tasting like fake butter—like a solidified version of the stuff you get on popcorn. Kerrygold garlic herb butter, on the other hand, is simply very good Kerrygold butter (you’ll see the original stuff further down on this list) mixed with real herbs and garlic. It goes heavy on the dill, so you do have to like that flavor, but the garlic is clearly present as well. Spread this garlic herb butter onto some soda bread or melt it onto veggies like green beans for an instant hit of butteriness and seasoning. It’s just further proof that Kerrygold is one of the best butter brands in existence.
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Tillamook Sea Salted Extra Creamy Butter
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As it says on the label, this butter is, indeed, extra creamy. It’s the best butter for a truly indulgent experience. There’s just a touch of salt, as if the butter makers just lightly sprinkled it with sea salt before lovingly packing it up and sending it out into the wide world. Tillamook is a farmer-owned co-op based in Oregon, so you can feel good that, even though this butter costs a bit more money, a good chunk of that money is going directly to the farmers.
Credit: Merc / Target
- The Devon Cream Company Double Devon Cream Butter
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If you gave this butter to me as a present, I would send you a very earnest thank you note. Not only is it wrapped in gold with a scripted label, it’s also complexly flavored and just plain incredible. It’s the best butter to buy if you’re willing to shell out a bit more cash, since it costs almost twice as much as many others on this list. But it’s worth it if you want to sit down to a meal of bread or radishes and butter. It’s so yellow with a ton of character—it has a meaty, umami quality.
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- Horizon Organic Salted Organic Butter
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Salted butter can taste chemically sometimes. But not Horizon. This is the best salted butter for salted butter devotees. The savory flavors crest over your tongue—wave after wave of sea salt sensations. “It actually tastes like cream,” said Sporked managing editor Gwynedd Stuart. “It’s super sweet and super salty at the same time.” She wants it on a baguette, and I agree. This is the best butter for bread—but do opt for a warm, crusty baguette if you can get to one. Channel your inner Parisian and make yourself a ham, butter, and brie sandwich with a thick base of Horizon butter.
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- Fabrique Delices Black Truffle Butter
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This black truffle butter is a perfect little splurge. There are real bits of black truffle mixed in with creamy butter—it’s not just flavored with truffle oil, which can taste super artificial. There’s some salt, but it doesn’t overwhelm the umami-filled truffle flavor. It’s a fancy little treat for a special night in. Personally, I think this is the best steak butter. Scoop some onto a finished steak and watch it melt into the juices, enriching the red meat. Yum, yum. But it would also be a great way to take a baked potato from a humble meal to a swank dinner. And don’t be put off by the size of the package. A little goes a long way.
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Les Pres Sales Butter
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This French butter is made from sea salt from Camargue, a coastal region in the South of France known for its salt flats, white horses, and cowboys. Yep, there are French cowboys. Isn’t that nice? But it’s the salt, not the cowboys, that make a difference in this French butter. It’s super yellow and cuts almost like cheese. And there are big ol’ chunks of Camargue sea salt in the mix, which fill your mouth with an oceanic flavor that is hard to beat. It’s the best French butter to buy and unlike anything from the States.
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- Ferrarini Agricola Italiana Butter
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The best Italian butter we tried is also some of the best Costco butter. Yes, you can buy this super luxe Italian butter along with a queen-size mattress and a knock-off Patagonia fleece. It’s so soft and so, so sweet. It’s almost overwhelmingly creamy and flavorful—especially for an unsalted butter. Want to show a salted butter loyalist how good unsalted butter can be? This is the best butter to buy.
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- Lurpak Slightly Salted Butter
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Why is Lurpak butter so good? According to the brand, it’s because they “ripen” the cream before turning it into butter. And the lactic cultures that are created during that “ripening” process give it a unique flavor. And their Slightly Salted butter is particularly good thanks to just a pinch of sea salt. This European style butter is creamy and grassy—it really tastes like fresh cream—and then there’s just this hint of saltiness that makes it a pure delight. If you can’t decide between salted butter or unsalted butter, Lurpak Slightly Salted is the best butter for you.
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter
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Ask a chef what they think the best butter is and more often than not they’ll tell you it’s Kerrygold. The salt is beautifully integrated into the butter itself, which is a gorgeous yellow hue thanks to the high butter fats. I might use this butter as a reference color for an accent wall in my kitchen—that’s how pretty it is. Kerrygold is good for cooking (it doesn’t add too much salt to any dish, just enough to elevate it), but it’s also good slathered onto a piece of bread. It’s not only the best Irish butter, it’s also the best spreadable butter—it spreads like an absolute dream.
Credit: Merc / Target
- Plugra Premium European Style Salted Butter
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If the chef you asked about the best butter didn’t say Kerrygold, they probably said Plugra. This European style butter is so creamy and has just the right amount of salt to add depth and dimension. You won’t even have to adjust the level of salt in a recipe—it will just make it that much better. It’s luxurious and immediately melts on your tongue. Everyone who commented about Plugra when we published our initial best butter ranking, you were right. It is definitely some of the best butter out there.
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter with Sea Salt
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We tried some fancy butters, but this reasonably priced salted butter (that is actually from Vermont) is the absolute best butter. “This butter takes you on a journey to butter town,” said Gwynedd. “It fills your mouth with flavor.” This is good enough to be centerpiece butter but affordable enough to be everyday butter. You could practically serve this as a starter course at a dinner party—that’s how good it is. Even after three taste tests, this remains the best tasting butter we’ve tried.
Credit: Merc / Amazon
Best Olive Oil Butter
Best Unsalted Butter
Best Vegan Butter
Best Garlic Herb Butter
Best Ultra Creamy
Best Splurge
Best Seriously Salted
Best Truffle Butter
Best French Butter
Best Italian Butter
Best Lightly Salted
Best Irish Butter
Best European Style
Best of the Best
Other butters we tried: Happy Belly Salted Butter Sticks, Trader Joe’s Salted Butter, Trader Joe’s Unsalted Butter, Great Value Unsalted Sweet Cream Butter, Sprouts Unsalted Butter, First Street Premium European Style Butter, First Street Butter, Sweet Cream Salted, Danish Creamery Butter European Style, Simple Truth Organic Butter with Sunflower Oil, Countryside Creamery Salted, Land O Lakes Unsalted Butter, Danish Creamery European Style Butter Unsalted, Vital Farms Sea Salted Butter, Land O Lakes Butter Salted, Challenge Butter with Olive Oil, Great Value Parmesan, Basil & Garlic, Land O Lakes Garlic & Herb, Fabrique Delices White Truffle Butter, Churn Everything Butter, Churn Garlic & Shallot Butter, Churn Miso Butter, Private Election Black Truffle, Frentel Butter Unsalted, Frentel Butter Salted, Kirkland Grass-Fed Butter Salted, Aldi Countryside Creamery Pure Irish Butter, Meyenberg Goat Milk Butter
