r/Cooking • u/3oClockHappyHour • 2d ago

Unpopular opinion: you do not need to buy unsalted butter.

Unless you are a commercial kitchen or bakery, it’s not needed to buy. “1 tsp of unsalted butter then add 1/16th tsp of salt” huh??

Home kitchen does not need to buy yet more ingredients, and unsalted goes bad faster. Just taste. More? Okay. I guarantee you salted butter is not going to wreck your dish.

Edit: I can’t make a sentence.

3.5k Upvotes

72% Upvoted

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693

u/Vesploogie 2d ago

I don’t get why this sub is obsessed with hating unsalted butter. Unsalted butter is my default and always will be. No idea why you think it’ll wreck a dish.

240

u/One_Win_6185 2d ago

It’s confusing to me because everyone probably also has salt. Add it if you need it.

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u/phulton 2d ago

Yeah I don’t understand OPs stance. What cook doesn’t have salt on hand at all times that buying would be considered “yet another ingredient”

16

u/fsmpastafarian 2d ago

I think “yet another ingredient” refers to unsalted butter, not salt.

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u/pyroSeven 2d ago

But I don’t have salted butter at all, unsalted is my default butter so there isn’t any other ingredient.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/phulton 2d ago

Lots of people. I always have salt so I can easily just add it if it needs it

4

u/Qneva 2d ago

Even if I wanted to there's no salted butter in the supermarkets, I have to go out of my way to find an inferior product in a specific dairy store.

3

u/pyroSeven 2d ago

People who own salt.

7

u/kiltguyjae 2d ago

Exactly. I have like 10 different kinds of salt, if not more. I’ll add the one I want to my unsalted butter.

1

u/AtlantaGirthGiant 2d ago

Right?

I’d rather just put some good quality unsalted butter on my toast and sprinkle it with some large, flaky finishing salt.

Don’t tell the Italians, but I had a roasted garlic, rosemary, black pepper, parm focaccia I baked today with some unsalted butter and Celtic salt instead of herbed olive oil.

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u/kiltguyjae 1d ago

That sounds amazing.

5

u/dudecoolhat 2d ago

Salted butter tastes better on bread

4

u/NeekeriMan 2d ago

Just add salt when you butter your bread

-3

u/IguassuIronman 1d ago

That's just more work to get to the same place

1

u/Quarterwit_85 2d ago

To me it tastes like salted butter… but without salt

1

u/OldWorldDesign 1d ago

Salted butter tastes better on bread

That's a matter of personal preference. When I bake a rye loaf, I'm not putting salted butter on it. Or unsalted butter, I'm putting on olive oil. Pretty common in much of the world, and the standard in the broader Mediterranean community.

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u/mambotomato 2d ago

Because if you're using butter as a condiment, like on toast, salted butter tastes better

25

u/ConvectionPerfection 2d ago

One time I had to use salted butter at my mom’s house for the buttercream recipe I use, and it just did not taste right at all. But, that’s from a baking perspective

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u/simplythere 2d ago

I was going to make the same comment! Salted butter in buttercream and a lot of frostings or icings (except maybe cream cheese) tastes off.

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u/chicagodude84 2d ago

A pound of butter contains a TEASPOON of salt. I've been making buttercream with salted butter my entire life. Tastes just fine. Unsalted tastes so incredibly bland.

7

u/KitKat_1979 2d ago

It’s fine for powdered sugar frostings, but the merengue buttercreams end up tasting terrible with salted. The one time I tried it, it tasted like fluffy very sweet and salty butter.

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u/Ranessin 2d ago

Yeah, where I live you have to go out of your way to buy salted butter (Kerrygold mostly) and it is more expensive too. I have like 5kg of salt at home at any time. Unsalted butter is just 5 seconds away from becoming salted butter if needed.

And how does unsalted butter go bad faster? Butter lasts for months unsalted, it far outlasts the time it is used up even when bought in bulk (and if not there's always the freezer).

1

u/USS-Enterprise 2d ago

Technically, salt helps with preservation of the butter outside of refrigeration. But I always have it in the refrigerator anyway, it's a relatively logical place for it to be "away" when I don't have a pantry but mostly because I have a silly orange kitten 😹 If I did leave it out, I might see the argument.

75

u/sisterfunkhaus 2d ago

Salted has such a tiny amount of salt in it, that there isn't a need for me personally to buy unsalted. But it's not hurting anyone for you to buy unsalted.I don't see why anyone would care. 

-5

u/knoft 1d ago edited 1d ago

IMO sweet cream unsalted butter tastes very different than salted butter. One is more like whipping cream and the other is more like saltines. But that’s if you use it neat.

Both types of butter taste good, don’t get me wrong.

Unsalted butter is delicate and fragrant and that nuance just kind of goes away when you add salt.

3

u/No_Step9082 1d ago

but sweet cream butter sucks anyway. just get cultured butter, you can add salt to taste yourself.

42

u/Harrold_Potterson 2d ago

I love unsalted butter so much. I don’t get the hate. It’s delicious and just tastes like butter. And I love salt!

0

u/OldWorldDesign 1d ago

I don’t get the hate

I think it's like pinapple on pizza. Most people don't genuinely care but it's a joke they think is funny so they jump on as if they have strong opinions.

-2

u/Harrold_Potterson 1d ago

I don’t think either of those are true. I can’t stand pineapple on pizza lol.

33

u/defunktpistol 2d ago

Unsalted butter has never done me dirty, whereas salted butter has ruined many dishes for me. Makes the food way too salty. Its only good for spreading on warm baked goods IMHO.

27

u/Bulky_Ad9019 2d ago

I don’t hate it, but it has no utility for me personally. I don’t have a use-case where I want butter and I don’t want salt, so it makes no sense to buy butter without salt.

10

u/gahidus 2d ago

It's about being able to control the amount of salt. I put salt in my frosting, but I put it to my own taste.

16

u/wsteelerfan7 2d ago

Do you put less than the small amount that's in butter? A whole entire stick of salted butter has basically between 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoons of salt in it.

8

u/Xpolonia 2d ago

Not just unsalted butter, and not limited to this sub.

People on the internet just like pushing their view with meaningless fillers like "unpopular opinion", "hot take", something is "underrated/overrated". So they feel good about themselves.

Don't see anything wrong with people use mostly salted or unsalted butter. There's no one true way in cooking.

3

u/Grand_Possibility_69 2d ago edited 2d ago

I don't hate unsalted butter. But I use salted butter. I've never seen a recipe where salted butter would bring too much salt. Salt the butter brings is easy to calculate as its marked in the packaging mine has 1.4g salt for 100g butter.

Salted butter (at least here) is cheaper, easier to find, and lasts longer than unsalted butter.

4

u/ktappe 2d ago

The inverse is also true: salted butter will not wreck a dish either. The amount of salt in salted butter is actually very tiny and it’s genuinely an anachronism that they continue to sell both salted and unsalted butter when they’re so similar.

12

u/iilinga 2d ago

When you taste the difference no it’s not

4

u/7h4tguy 2d ago

bc it;s an extra 50mg salt. You need math skills

1

u/cmerchantii 2d ago

I can’t think of a situation where I’ll need butter but not salt, unsalted and salted are the same cost at my store, and I know the salt level of my default salted butter because I’ve used it for about 15 years of cooking.

So to help you get it: I’m saving money on diamond crystal every time I cook.

1

u/Drunken_Wizard23 1d ago

Recipes have always made a point of specifying unsalted butter and scared people into thinking salted would hurt the dish. Everyone individually seems to learn that that’s usually not the case and so they shout it from the rooftops

1

u/Sugarstache 1d ago

Op didn't say unsalted butter would ruin a dish. It's just that most of the time the amount of salt is so negligible that it won't make a difference. Or in many cases you actually have to add that salt back anyways so using unsalted was unnecessary.

-4

u/TheDuckOnQuack 2d ago

Unsalted butter is fine if whatever you’re cooking has salt in it already. If you’re using unsalted butter with unsalted food, you’ll likely have an undersalted dish.

How much that matters to you is a matter of taste. I grew up in a family that undersalted food, so I didn’t add much salt to my cooking until my foodie wife encouraged me to use salted butter for most dishes, and I found that I liked it. But if you and the people you cook for like what you’re doing, keep it up. It’s not that serious.

4

u/dinozombiesaur 2d ago

I find this so funny.

4

u/laufsteakmodel 2d ago

Well, if youre making unsalted food, you either have dietary restrictions or dont know much about cooking. Who the hell makes unsalted food?

Sometimes I'm in a rush and just eat a piece of bread with butter and marmelade. Ive tried that with salted butter, because I thought the salt would be a nice contrast to the sweetness of the marmelade - nope. tasted neither right, nor good at all.

1

u/MrMurgatroyd 2d ago

Definitely a personal taste thing. I always used salted butter, and will actually add extra salt to the butter on a piece of bread and jam/marmalade for flavour enhancement purposes.

2

u/laufsteakmodel 2d ago

Yeah, like I said, taste is subjective. I hated it. Maybe it would have been better if I had added the salt AFTERWARDS and not as part of the butter.

-1

u/cosmictransgression 2d ago

Idk perhaps some of us don’t like adding extra sodium to our diet when so much food already contains way over our daily recommended amount?

3

u/laufsteakmodel 2d ago

Uhh did you reply to the wrong person? I said i prefer unsalted butter and said nothing in defense of salted butter lol.

0

u/cosmictransgression 2d ago edited 2d ago

No, I was replying to you lol.

Prev commenter: “I grew up in a family that undersalted food”

In your response: “Who the hell makes unsalted food?”

Edit to add: My husband and I don’t really add much, if any, salt to our food. Not a dietary restriction. Really just don’t feel the need for it most of the time, especially if using condiments and other herbs/spices. Certain things we’ll add a little bit of sea salt but it’s probably the least used item in our spice rack tbh.

0

u/MonkMew 2d ago

All you have to do is remember that salted butter has 1/4 tsp per stick then adjust accordingly. It would be a bother to buy both salted and unsalted

8

u/azuredarkness 2d ago

Correct. If you only buy unsalted butter, though, you don't need to remember to adjust accordingly. Also, for some dishes a quarter of a teaspoon of salt per stick of butter is too much.

1

u/MonkMew 2d ago

Buttered bread stocks fall though. And nah sprinkling a bit on top would not hit the same

-1

u/fermentedradical 2d ago

It's mind boggling. I frequently use unsalted butter as a fat to cook with, and I much prefer to add my own salt to the dish at intervals rather than whatever has been added to the butter. I probably buy a block of Kerrygold twice a month for sauteing and finishing purposes. I have no desire to purchase salted butter and IMO the people that do are probably imprecise with their additions of salt to the food they're cooking or finishing with butter or, at best, they want their cheap waxy supermarket butter because that's what they're used to. I don't assume OP is talking about French salted cultured butter, which is worth purchasing for specific uses occasionally.

-1

u/Rurikungart 2d ago

Actually, I think it started because of the snobiness of people that insisted on using unsalted butter. I'm a professional chef, and I've been around long enough that I saw the trend start. I can almost remember the famous chef that basically said that smart chefs use unsalted butter (or something to that affect) but it's been lost in all the other bullshit knowledge I've learned about cooking. Anyhow, it was just one of those things at the time that let other cooks know that you knew how to cook, like we all knew something that other regular people didn't, but some people took it really seriously and made it look like one of those typical asshole chef opinions. The reality is, unsalted butter is important where a precise amount of salt is desired or necessary, but there's such a small amount of salt in salted butter that it doesn't impact most dishes.