Tomato Butter
Try this savory butter condiment that tastes great on your morning bagel or melted over your grilled chicken. Stays for one month!
you're making mealtime meaningful.
Tomato butter is a savory condiment you didn’t know you needed. This is not only a great recipe, but it’s also a wonderful way to use up extra tomato product in your fridge. Did you throw away the rest of the can of your tomato paste? Do you throw away old tomato scraps from recipes? This recipe relies on a concentrated tomato product that you flavor to then blend into butter. The butter ages like wine and can go on soo much! Making compound butter like this one adds extra flavor to your day while stretching your butter to last longer. Compound butters are where it’s at and I hope by the end of this recipe I will have you hooked!
To start making compound butter, you start with your concentrate. Cook your tomatoes down! This is a process that happens low and slow in a pot with a spatula. It’s like making a jam or jelly. You need the mixture to slowly evaporate any unnecessary moisture. Moisture that gets locked into the fat will only create a space to promote bacterial growth. This process takes some time, but the good news is you can also go on with your day as the mixture concentrates. Stirring every 4 – 5 minutes for about 20 minutes is what it will look like.
Once you have your tomato concentrate cooled, you can freeze it or you can mix it into something. You may even find yourself making a pasta sauce from this mixture. Just add a few drops of water and you’ve got a tasty pasta sauce. We are going to blend this into our butter, so you first have to start by whipping your butter. We want to create air in the butter to help distribute the concentrated tomato sauce evenly. I use a hand mixer for this process and use a spatula to spat down the sides. The butter will turn a noticeably lighter yellow color when it’s ready. Add your tomato to the whipped butter and mix. It’s as easy as that!
This recipe, I hope, just encourages you to save more of your vegetable scraps and repurpose old cans of vegetables that you might have thrown out. It takes only twenty minutes to make tomatoes into a versatile product like this, so I hope you try making it soon! It’s wonderful to open your fridge, too, because the recipe ideas are endless once this is in your possession. I spread mine on a piece of sourdough toast and topped it with shaved parmesan cheese. Make this for a family member and make there day. Happy cooking!
Tomato Butter
Yield(s): Makes 4 cups
10m prep time
20m cook time
you're making mealtime meaningful.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoons olive oil
- 12 roma tomatoes, chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme
Preparation
- In a saucepot, add olive oil, tomatoes, and garlic cloves over medium-high heat. Cook tomatoes until they start to break down, then reduce to low. Continue cooking for around 10 - 12 minutes or until the tomato water has evaporated and concentrated. Remove from heat and let cool.
- In a bowl, whip the butter using a hand mixer until the butter is pale and airy.
- Add fresh thyme, tomato mixture, salt and pepper to the whipped butter and continue beating. You can also puree all of this in a food processor for a more blended look.
- Store your tomato butter in an airtight container or place it between parchment paper to form a log. Store in the fridge for up to a month.