Butter buds rewards a little know-how: how to choose them, cook them, store them, and substitute in a pinch. Browse 18 recipes to cook with them.

What are butter buds?

Butter Buds are dried, butter-flavored granules you sprinkle or dissolve into food to get a buttery taste with almost none of the fat. They come from the low-fat cooking wave of the 1980s.

The granules are made mostly from maltodextrin carrying the flavor of cultured, enzyme-treated butter. A packet is meant to be mixed with hot water and stirred into a dish, not melted in a pan.

There is no real fat to brown or fry in. Think of it as butter flavor rather than butter.

One packet typically replaces the taste of a few tablespoons of butter while adding only a few calories.

Cooking With Butter Buds

Stir the granules into anything already wet and warm. They work best in mashed potatoes, where the liquid and steam carry the flavor through, and in soups like Potato Leek Spinach Soup or a Fat-Free No-Cream Asparagus Soup.

Those soups lean on a buttery richness they would otherwise get from cream. To reconstitute, whisk one packet into about ½ cup hot water until it dissolves, then pour that into the pot.

Used dry, the granules give a buttery dusting straight onto hot popcorn or steamed vegetables, where melted butter would turn everything soggy.

In baking they work into the dough or batter as a flavor note rather than structure. Recipes built around them, like Brown Sugar Apple Pie - Butter Busters or Banana Apple Cake, use real fat or fruit puree for moisture and let the granules carry the butter taste.

They also season savory dishes well. A spoonful stirred into Curried Chicken & Asparagus or over Carrots (California Orange Style) (R T) adds round, buttery depth without slicking the pan.

Flavor and Common Mistakes

The flavor is genuinely butter-like but reads cleaner and slightly saltier than the real thing. It misses the browned, nutty notes you get from cooking actual butter.

Because of that, it pairs best where butter is a background richness: starches and vegetables and creamy soups, rather than dishes where browned butter is the point.

The biggest mistake is trying to cook in it. There is no fat to sauté onions in or to grease a pan, so anything calling for that step still needs oil or real butter. Treat the granules as seasoning added at the end, not as a cooking medium.

The second mistake is going dry when the food is dry. Sprinkled on a plain baked potato with no moisture, the granules just sit there grainy. Either pick a moist food or dissolve them first.

Watch the salt, too. The granules carry sodium, so taste before you add more to an already seasoned pot.

Substitutes

For the buttery flavor with the lowest fat, the closest match is plain butter-flavored sprinkles from another brand, used the same way. They behave identically since they are the same maltodextrin-and-flavor idea.

Liquid butter flavoring or butter extract gets you the taste in a few drops, but adds no body and no salt. Start with about ¼ teaspoon per packet of granules a recipe calls for, then taste; it is concentrated and easy to overdo.

If fat is not the concern, real butter or a butter-flavored spread is the honest swap. You lose the calorie savings but gain the browning and mouthfeel the granules cannot give.

For a vegan option, nutritional yeast brings a savory, faintly buttery depth, though the flavor leans more cheesy than buttery.

Buying and Storage

You will find Butter Buds in the baking or diet aisle, usually as a box of single-serve packets or a shaker tub of loose granules. The packets are handy for recipes written around one, while the tub is cheaper if you use it often.

Keep the granules dry. Stored sealed in a cool, dry cupboard away from steam and humidity, an unopened box keeps for a year or more; check the date on the package.

Once opened, fold the packet closed or seal the tub tightly, since the maltodextrin draws moisture and will clump if it gets damp. If a batch clumps, break it up with a fork before measuring so you do not get one over-buttery bite and a bland one next to it.

Types of butter buds

Specific kinds of butter buds and the recipes that use them.

Butter flavored mix

View butter flavored mix recipes →

Butter-flavoured sprinkles

View butter-flavoured sprinkle recipes →

Quick facts

In Chinese

黄油芽

British (UK) term

Butter buds

en français

bourgeons de beurre

en español

yemas de mantequilla

Recipes using butter buds

There are 18 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 18 recipes