Cowboy Butter (Compound Butter and Dipping Sauce)
How to Make Cowboy Butter for Steak – Make your own restaurant-quality compound butter (or melted butter dipping sauce) with a flavorful blend of lemon, herbs, and crushed red pepper for a kick of spicy heat. This recipe is perfect to pair with your favorite proteins, veggies, or warm bread!
What is Cowboy Butter?
Get ready to put some pep in your spurs! Cowboy Butter is essentially compound butter for steak, a mixture of butter with additional ingredients to provide amplified flavor. But although the taste is wildly exciting, the condiment is actually quite simple and easy to whip up in a blender.
This crowd-pleasing recipe features tangy Dijon mustard with fresh lemon and herbs. We also add a few key spices like paprika and crushed red pepper to give the butter its signature spicy kick. (But don’t worry – it’s easy to adjust the heat to your tastes!)
This robust butter sauce is widely popular on social media and in restaurants right now… And you are about to find out exactly what the hype is all about!
How Do You Use Cowboy Butter?
The most traditional uses for cowboy butter is with steak, either as a dipping sauce, or as a chilled compound butter on top. However, you can serve it with pork chops, chicken, fish, shrimp, over vegetables, and even as a garlic bread topper before toasting.
Keep reading for some of our favorite dishes to pair with this fabulous seasoned dip or firm butter!
Ingredients You Need
- Butter – unsalted butter, melted
- Dijon mustard – for an extra tangy taste
- Garlic – peel cloves but leave them whole if you are blending, or mince to make the compound butter by hand
- Lemon zest – the tartness brings together the luscious butter and fresh herbs
- Fresh herbs – chopped chives and parsley
- Spices – crushed red pepper flakes, ground cumin, and smoked paprika
How to Make Cowboy Butter
Note: You can make this recipe using a blender, or combine the ingredients by hand if you prefer. Here we list the steps to make in the blender while featuring images for making the compound butter to help you see the full process. Enjoy whichever method you like!
Place the melted butter in the blender and add Dijon mustard. (Or add to a mixing bowl, if you want it chunky.)
Add garlic. Puree until the mixture has emulsified and the garlic cloves are finely chopped.
Add in the lemon zest, chives, parsley, crushed red pepper, ground cumin, and paprika.
Get the Complete (Printable) Cowboy Butter Recipe + Video Below. Enjoy!
Pulse 2-3 times to blend the ingredients into the mixture. (OR stir vigorously to combine.)
Taste, then add additional salt or spices if desired.
Recipe Variations
- Dairy-free – Swap traditional butter with your favorite plant-based alternative to easily make this a vegan cowboy butter recipe.
- Fresh herbs – We love the addition of fresh chopped chives and parsley; however, feel free to omit either and/or swap with your choice of other herbs. Fresh cilantro is a great option!
- Spices – Cut back on the crushed red pepper or leave it out entirely for a mild compound or melted butter. Or, if you’d like, add a pinch of cayenne pepper to the mix to really crank up the spicy flavors!
Serving Suggestions
We LOVE how versatile cowboy butter is! You can serve it warm as a butter dipping sauce, or you can chill it to use as a firm compound butter to melt over hot steak and other proteins.
Here are a few of our favorite ways to use this spicy delicious butter:
Spoon generous amounts of the melted butter mixture over grilled meats like tender slices of steak, chicken, or pork. It is particularly wonderful to add some luscious flavor to cuts of meat like hanger steak, skillet steak bites, and skirt steak!
Add some excitement to veggies and enjoy as a dip with roasted, sautéed, air-fried or steamed broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, or any hearty veg. It’s also delightful for dipping hunks of crusty bread as an appetizer or side dish.
Chill the mixture for 30+ minutes to make a fantastic scoop-able and/or sliceable firm compound butter. Slice off thick discs and add onto steaks or other proteins; we particularly love to let the butter melt over hearty steaks like porterhouse steaks, filets, ribeyes, or sirloin steaks. It also adds an extra level of juiciness to grilled chicken and salmon,
Serve slices of the butter with corn on the cob, grilled veggies, or grilled artichokes to add some giddyup to your classic vegetable side dishes.
And, if you are anything like me, you’ll love smearing a cool pat of compound butter onto warm pieces of bread. Or add it to garlic bread right before toasting. (Seriously, I could enjoy the combo of bread and butter any time of day.) Yum!
Frequently Asked Questions
It is decadently buttery, of course. The addition of Dijon, lemon, and herbs gives the sauce a nice bite of freshness and tangy taste to cut the rich flavor of the butter. Then the dried spices and red pepper come in with some heat… Together these simple ingredients create a unique flavor that is both luscious and punchy. In a word: Perfect!
A traditional butter is made with just milk, and sometimes a pinch of salt. Compound butter, however, includes a combination of other ingredients. This can be just a few fresh herbs, citrus zest, spices… Or all of the above, like in this cowboy butter recipe!
Store the butter in an airtight container and keep it in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
The compound butter can even be frozen! Use parchment to roll the butter into a log, then wrap tightly in plastic wrap and freeze. But for ease, I suggest slicing the entire log into single-portion discs and then flash-freezing the pieces for 1 hour on a baking sheet. Transfer to an airtight container with a tiny piece of parchment between each slice before sealing and freezing. Then you can pull out individual slices as needed! The butter will keep well in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Looking for More Quick and Easy Recipes? Be Sure to Also Try:
- Best Easy Remoulade Sauce
- Homemade Tartar Sauce
- Texas Pete Vinaigrette
- Magic Aioli Sauce
- Easy Beef Gravy Recipe
Cowboy Butter (Compound Butter and Dipping Sauce)
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter melted
- 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 3-4 cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
- 1 tablespoon chopped chive
- 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
- ½ – 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
Instructions
- Place the melted butter in the blender. Add Dijon mustard and garlic cloves. Puree until the mixture has emulsified and the garlic cloves are finely chopped.
- Add in the lemon zest, chive, parsley, crushed red pepper, ground cumin, and paprika. Pulse 2-3 times to blend the ingredients into the mixture.
- Taste, then add additional salt or spices if desired.
- Serve warm as a dipping sauce, or place in an airtight container and refrigerate until hard. Then slice and use as compound butter.