Best Butter/Margarine Substitute?

Alatariel75

Butter is very "clean" and natural! It's just cream and salt, if it is done right.

like2laugh

Butter!
We also use Ghee, coconut oil, almond oil, olive oil...

Carnivor0us

I use ghee. Or coconut oil.

I keep forgetting to mention ghee, love to cook with it..........I use it constantly for Indian and SE Asian cooking.

Ghee's pretty awesome. I wasn't aware that butter's not considered 'clean', but I'd assume pure butterfat would be.

Must be those "other" milk solids that make it dirty, eh!

I guess so.....and I thought *I* was strict about that stuff....sheesh.

I use a good amount of organic butter in my diet, and would never think of changing that for any vegetable product that like to promote health with big hearts and no cholesterol on the packaging........ obviously, ridiculously and greedily taking advantage of the nutritionally challenged folk..............at least after 80 years of high amounts of trans fats they have shied away from making the less obvious amount a good thing for most brands, which I find pretty funny.

Margarine makes me leery as well. Butter is the best substitute for butter.

TheRealParisLove

Organic coconut oil. I use it for baked goods in place of butter. Never use margarine. It is junk food, and really terrible for your health.

HeidiCooksSupper

If you want something with fewer calories by volume than butter, make homemade "light butter spread" by whipping together 1 part softened butter : 1 part olive oil : 2 parts water. It works. It really does. Like many commercial light butters, it makes toast a little "wet" as it melts from the water but it tastes really good and you know the quality of the ingredients you put in it.

Lleldiranne

If you take some heavy cream (whipping cream) and fill a bottle that has a tight sealing cap on it about half way full and then shake it as hard as you can for ... oh I dunno... 20 minutes? The heavy cream will separate into butter and "skim" milk liquid. Butter is just milk fat, isn't it? Sure, you can add all sorts of weird stuff to it like salt or honey or whatever, but I mean, if you get organic butter, I am pretty sure that's gotta be one of the least processed semi-solid fats there is!

I'm not sure how long it would take. I would say try it with something that has a mixing function, rather than a plain bottle (Like the tupperware mixer shaker thing, or BlenderBottle has some great options, at least for protein shakes and stuff). I remember when I was learning how to cook and whipping up the cream, my grandma warned me not to whip it "too much or it'll turn into butter" :laugh: I don't know how true that is, but you could maybe even use a hand mixer. You could probably do a quick google search and get some suggestions on making your own butter - or pinterest.

And I may be wrong, but I don't think the cream will separate. It's already been separated from the more liquid part, which is why it's cream instead of whole milk.

peggymdellinger

You can do this in a stand mixer... it separates into butter and butter milk. I do it using raw milk from a local farm. (by "this" I mean turn cream into butter. I've never tried with the pasteurized store bought cream. I buy raw, whole milk, skim off the cream, and use it to make butter, yogurt, and sour cream... you can also make your own cheese but I've never tried)

Then, I rarely use butter anymore. I use olive oil on bread with some herbs/spices, coconut oil at times, applesauce in baking, or you can halve your butter by using 1/2 butter and 1/2 plain greek yogurt in baking as well. Usually though, I just skip it. Bread, corn, pancakes, etc... are still good without the butter. I NEVER use "butter substitutes"... yum, chemicals spread all over my food. No thanks! lol.

kiddoc88

for baking I use applesauce, anything else i just use a small amount of the real stuff

nadiawylie

I use avocado for spreads to replace butter, also coconut oil for cooking.

thistimewillbedifferent

I agree re real butter over a substitute, but I have a hard time making real butter fit into my daily life, since I am severely restricting sat fat for cholesterol reasons. As a result, I tend to use entirely different foods: on toast, for example, instead of butter I use hummus and avocado. Same thing on sandwiches. On waffles I use fat-free Greek yogurt. Sure, these subs don't taste like butter, but they give me the same creamy/fatty texture that I was craving, so it works for me. Best wishes figuring out what works best for you!

PlayerHatinDogooder

Bacon grease

Ready2Rock206

I almost never use butter or margarine. For clean eating I'd probably just go with the real butter. I buy Land O'Lakes or Smart Balance but I probably only use it every couple months or so and only a very small amount...

Lupercalia

I just use real butter. I like Kerrygold brand.

GrandmaPeridow

Your grandmother was right: once I beat whipping cream too much with a hand mixer. I got butter and buttermilk. It tasted very good. I don't remember how much time it took.

I like avocado as a spread, especially on sandwiches.

Kierda

When I worked at Starbucks as a teen, I used to shake heavy cream in the bottle we used for the caramel sauce (cleaned of course) to make "butter" for pumpkin loaf on my breaks. took forever, but tasted great

bcattoes

Is real butter not considered clean? (serious question...)

There are varying definitions of "clean". Some would consider it clean if there are no man-made additives and it's just churned milk. Others would not because it's not in the form in which it's found in nature.

bcattoes

I rarely use anything other then evoo, but canola oil or Benecol spread would be the two I used next most often. But if you are looking for 'clean' substitutions that won't help.