What's The Actual Salt Content In A Stick Of Salted Butter?

Fat is one of the backbones of extraordinary cuisine, and most folks' favorite go-to is rich, velvety butter. Another mainstay is salt; This humble seasoning amplifies the flavor of any fare. Salted butter lends both crucial ingredients, but depending on the recipe you're following, that extra salinity may not be a welcome addition to your meal.

The amount of salt within the golden fat isn't consistent between even the best store-bought butter brands. It's a good idea to check the nutrition label to identify the specific quantity, but on average, a stick of salted butter contains ¼ to ½ teaspoon of salt (or 600 to 900 milligrams of sodium). Not only does the salt content upgrade the flavor, but it also has advantageous preservation qualities that allows salted butter to last a little longer than its unsalted cohort.

Every bit of salted butter you add to your cuisine includes a small amount of seasoning, so you'll want to adjust your cooking so you don't inadvertently create an unappealingly salty dish. Of course, there are recipes that specifically call for unsalted butter; And there's no way to extract the salt from salted butter since it's already incorporated into the fat. Thankfully, you can usually use the salted version if that's all you have. You just need to MacGyver the recipe a bit.

Salted butter can be incorporated into various savory recipes, like polenta and crispy roasted vegetables. Still, it is most often used as a condiment to level up foods like toasted bread, pancakes, and gourmet blueberry muffins because of the extra flavor the sodium lends to sweeter baked goods. Unsalted butter is commonly called for — especially in baking — because it affords you complete control over how much seasoning goes into your dish.

When a recipe calls for unsalted butter but you only have its salted partner in crime, take a look at the instructions to see if any extra salt is also required. If so, reduce your salt by ¼ to ½ teaspoon for every ½ cup of salted butter.

When it is the other way around and a recipe calls for salted butter, you can use the unsalted version and add the additional salt by hand, implementing the same ratio in reverse. It's best to start by adding ¼ teaspoon of salt and seeing how the dish tastes. If it needs more seasoning, you can always increase the quantity. While we'd all love to have every possible ingredient at the ready, when it comes to salted and unsalted butter, there's almost always a solution that lets you keep on cooking.