Garlic Butter with Herbs for Sandwiches: Easy Recipe
Light, rich garlic butter is easy to make for homemade sandwiches. It keeps well in the fridge and spreads beautifully on fresh or toasted bread, making the sausage on top even tastier. I remember as a kid, when a sausage sandwich tasted much better without the bread, a layer of butter completely changed my attitude to it.
A sandwich, literally “bread with butter”, is a snack, a way to quickly stave off light hunger, and what usually piles up on the table at office “parties”. There are countless kinds of sandwiches, including incredibly elaborate multi-layered ones with plenty of ingredients.
The simplest sandwich is bread and butter or bread and cheese. A fancier version adds sausage, cheese, caviar and so on. Bread is spread with more than just butter, although that is the most common choice. Processed cheese, butter substitutes (horrible!), mayonnaise, sauces or compound spreads based on butter are often used, for example garlic butter or blends with mustard or homemade horseradish.
Butter, or cow's butter, is an ideal cooking fat made from cow's milk. With a fat content of up to 99%, it is very high in calories and is hardly ever eaten on its own.
A blend of natural butter with aromatic and flavoring additions is widely used for sandwiches. For example, a little salt, herbs and garlic give you excellent butter with a light garlicky note that makes a sandwich incredibly tasty and pretty.
This garlic spread based on butter takes a few minutes to make, but it needs time to chill. Plenty of vitamins and a high calorie count make butter a valuable food. This homemade sandwich spread can be made with any culinary herbs or even green onions. Regular garlic can be replaced with wild garlic (although some of its varieties are listed in the Red Book), which is always available in spring. Make garlic butter and build sandwiches to your own taste.
More with bread
BruschettaClassic Italian bruschetta: toasted baguette rubbed with garlic, brushed with olive oil and topped with ripe tomato, mozzarella and basil. Ready in 15 minutes.
Garlic ToastsGarlic toasts: slices of baguette and dark bread toasted in a dry pan and rubbed with a garlic clove. A crisp base for an appetizer platter with toppings.
Crispy CroutonsCrispy homemade croutons for beer: a white loaf, dried green onion, rock salt and a little olive oil, dried in the microwave in 20-30 minutes.
Fried BreadFried bread in a pan: crispy golden slices in 5 minutes. A simple snack with hot pepper that goes well with borscht, soups and tomato juice.
Lavash Snack with Fresh HerbsA quick lavash snack: thin flatbread rolled with a fresh herb salad of cilantro, dill, parsley, pickled onion and garlic dressing. Ready in minutes.Ingredients
8-10 sandwiches
- Butter 100 g
- Fresh herbs 5-6 sprigs
- Garlic 1-3 cloves
- Olive oil 1 tsp
- Bread for sandwiches 8-10 slices
- Salt, herbs, lemon to taste
Step-by-step recipe
- Garlic butter should be made only from fresh, natural butter. The various “kinds” of butter sold as amateur, farmer's, sandwich or tea butter are at best an emulsion of butter and water, and at worst an emulsion of vegetable oil. No substitutes or spreads, only real butter.
- Any fresh herbs will do for the butter. It turns out especially tasty with fresh basil or ramsons. Parsley and dill, cilantro or a mixed bunch of herbs also work well, whatever you like. Wash the herbs thoroughly and pat them dry of any water drops.
- Peel as much garlic as you like and chop it with a knife so it breaks down better later. Chop the herbs a little too. By the way, don't use the stems: they are tough and won't chop properly. Mix the garlic and herbs, add a pinch of salt and stir. Wait 2-3 mins for the salt to dissolve.
- Take the butter out of the fridge in advance so it becomes completely soft at room temperature. Never heat the butter: it will turn liquid and you will have to chill it again.
- Put the herbs with the garlic and salt into a blender, add the soft butter and start blending. If your home blender with a bowl doesn't handle small amounts well, use an immersion hand blender. It is much easier to chop the butter, herbs and garlic finely this way. Besides, the mixture doesn't stick to the walls of the bowl as much.
- To make the final mixture soft and easy to spread on a sandwich, add 1 tsp of natural olive oil and blend very thoroughly until completely smooth. You can tell by the even color of the butter and the flecks of herbs. Transfer the mixture to a small dish and refrigerate for 1 hour to set.
- Slice fresh bread into pieces of any shape and size, no thicker than 15 mm. Toast the bread in a dry frying pan on one side only. Once one side is browned, let the toasts cool. The other side stays soft, and that is where the garlic spread goes.
- After the toasted bread has cooled, take the garlic butter out of the fridge and spread it on the soft side of the toasts. Garnish with a sprig of herbs and a thin slice of lemon.
- Although, as I'm told, homemade sausage would be much more fitting here.
- For sandwiches you can combine different breads and fillings, and the aromatic butter will complement and bring out the flavor of the snack as a whole. Butter with garlic and herbs is perfect for spreading on liver cake or a sandwich with peppers.
| Yield: | 8-10 sandwiches |
| Calories: | 710 kcal per 100 g |
| Prep time: | 5 mins |
| Cooking time: | 10 mins |
| Ready in: | 15 mins (not including chilling) |
| Category: | Snacks and Sauces › Sandwiches |
| Cuisine: | European |
| Rating: |
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4.4
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