Learn how to make garlic butter with just 4 ingredients! Creamy, savory, and rich, it's a delicious topping for potatoes, dinner rolls, noodles, and more.

What’s better than regular butter? Garlic butter! This spread is rich and, well, buttery, brimming with savory garlic flavor. It’s quick to stir together, and it lasts for days in the fridge. Keep it on hand for slathering onto bagels and toast, tossing with noodles, dotting onto baked potatoes, and more. It’s such an easy way to amp up the flavor in simple, everyday meals.

How to Make Garlic Butter

This homemade garlic butter recipe has to be one of the simplest on the blog. It only calls for 4 basic ingredients:

Unsalted butter,
garlic,
finely chopped fresh parsley or chives,
and salt.

Big tip: In order for you to make this recipe, the butter will need to be at room temperature. Set it out on the counter at least an hour ahead so that it has time to soften.

When the butter is soft and spreadable, place all the ingredients in a small bowl, and stir until they are well-combined.

Enjoy the butter right away, or store it in the fridge for later use. So easy!

How to Use Garlic Butter

There are so many ways to use this garlic butter! Here are a few of my favorites:

Spread it onto French bread or warm baguette for a yummy side dish, snack, or appetizer. You could even add the bread and butter to a cheese board or crudité platter!
Use it to make garlic bread. That’s right! Making this easy garlic butter is the first step towards making homemade garlic bread. Find my recipe here.
Let it melt over mashed potatoes. It’s fantastic on my regular mashed potatoes, Instant Pot mashed potatoes, and this garlic mashed cauliflower!
Dot it into a baked potato. Or a baked sweet potato.
Toss it with pasta to make a quick garlic butter sauce. Butter noodles don’t get better than this.
Spoon it over simply cooked veggies, like sautéed mushrooms or steamed broccoli.
Slather it onto homemade cornbread, jalapeño cornbread, or dinner rolls. The perfect side dish for almost any meal!
Rub it over corn on the cob. Boiled or grilled!
Or spread it onto a toasted bagel for a quick, delicious breakfast.

How do you like to use garlic butter? Let me know in the comments!

More Favorite Butters and Spreads

If you love this recipe, try one of these butters or spreads next:

Garlic Butter

rate this recipe:

5 from 38 votes

Prep Time: 5

Total Time: 5

Serves 8

Save Recipe Print Recipe

This easy garlic butter keeps well for up to 2 weeks in the fridge. It's a delicious topping for bread, potatoes, and vegetables. Find my favorite serving suggestions in the post above.

Ingredients

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley or chives
2 garlic cloves, grated
½ teaspoon sea salt

Instructions

In a small bowl, stir together the softened butter, parsley, garlic, and salt.
Serve on toasted baguette or bake onto garlic bread. Find more serving suggestions in the post above.