Ghee

Ghee is a butter-based cooking fat with an incredibly delicious nutty flavor, that makes everything from scrambled eggs to roasted vegetables to brownies and popcorn taste like delectable gourmet adventures. It’s such a treat to have on hand!

Making your own ghee is one of the easiest things to do. Not only does it taste light years better, than what you can buy in the store (my humble opinion anyway), it also saves you some serious bucks.

3 reasons why you should cook with ghee

1. It tastes amazing – think a nutty buttery flavor (yeah, I don’t need to sell that one, right?)
2. It’s a very heat stable cooking fat. Ever notice how butter darkens and burns, when cooked at higher temperatures? It’s the milk solids. When making ghee the milk solids are discarded. Ghee is just pure butter fat, making it an excellent choice of cooking fat for all types of cooking. Furthermore ghee mainly consists of saturated fat – a type of fat not prone to heat induced damage and oxidation (as opposed to most vegetable oils that mainly consist of highly unstable polyunsaturated fats).
3. Most people tolerate it. When made properly ghee only consist of pure butter fat making it safe to consume for most people (in many cases even those intolerant and allergic to milk (lactose and casein) too).

How to use ghee?

Ghee can be used exactly like butter – it’s good in all types of cooking, spread on bread, etc.

Some of my favorite things to make with ghee

• Popcorn
• Spread on toast and sweet potato toast (…add a sprinkle of flaky sea salt and you’re good to go!)
• Roasted nuts and seeds
• Roasted vegetables
• Sautéed garlic mushrooms
• Eaten with radishes and good quality salt (ah yes, the French way – it’s really yummy as a snack!)
• Mashed potatoes
• Tostones
• Steaks
• Sage ghee sauce (like sage brown butter sauce – A-M-A-Z-I-N-G on anything pasta!)
• Scrambled and fried eggs
• Brownies
• Waffles and pancakes

Clarified butter is clarified butter is not ghee

Ghee gets it’s delicious sought after nutty flavor from the milk solids getting roasted and caramelized. This is also what sets ghee and clarified butter apart; clarified butter is melted and simmered just until the water has evaporated and the milk solids have separated from the pure butter fat. Ghee on the other hand is simmered for much longer, so that the milk solids get roasted and caramelized, the amber color deepens and that lovely nutty flavor develops.

How to make ghee – step-by-step

I prefer to make my ghee low ‘n’ slow and making a 4 lbs / 2 kg batch usually takes me about 2½ hours.

The hands on time is very minimal though, but since you do need to keep an occasional eye on the process, skimming off and stuff like that, it’s a good idea to make ghee while you’re in the kitchen anyway making dinner, food prepping, etc.

Step 1

Place the butter in a sauce pan and let it melt over low heat.

Step 2

Once the butter is melted, turn down the heat to the lowest setting possible – it’s supposed to just barely simmer.

Step 3

Stir the butter occasionally and skim off the white foam (milk solids) that forms on the surface. The foam production quickly decreases, so you mostly need to skim off in the very beginning.

Step 4

Let the butter simmer for a couple of hours.

Step 5

The butter fat changes from an opaque golden (step 4) to a translucent golden to a…

Step 6

…beautiful translucent amber color!

It’s because of the remaining milk solids at the bottom of the pan getting roasted and caramelized, that the color of the butter fat changes from golden to amber.

To develop a really rich and nutty flavor, let the solids roast for a while. But be careful not to burn them (this happens if they roast for (way) to long).

Start taste-testing the butter fat once it turns amber colored and turn off the heat, once you think it’s nutty and delicious.

Step 7

Pour the ghee through a paper towel or triple-layered cheesecloth lined fine mesh stainless steel strainer to remove any roasted milk solids and impurities.

Step 8

Voila – delicious homemade ghee ready to be eaten will all the things (…but mostly popcorn, right?).

Ghee

Use ghee when making anything from scrambled eggs to roasted vegetables to brownies and popcorn. With it’s delicious buttery nutty flavor, ghee is sure to add depth, richness and extra yum to all your meals!

Servings 5 C / 1,25 L

Ingredients

• 4 lbs / 2 kg salted or unsalted butter (you can make a smaller or larger batch too)

Instructions

1. Place the butter in a sauce pan and let it melt over low heat.
2. Once the butter is melted, turn down the heat to the lowest setting possible – it’s supposed to just barely simmer.
3. Stir the butter occasionally and skim off the white foam (milk solids) that forms on the surface. The foam production quickly decreases, so you mostly need to skim off in the very beginning.
4. Let the butter simmer for a couple of hours.
5. As seen on the pictures above (step 4-6), the butter fat changes from an opaque golden to a translucent golden to a beautiful translucent amber color. It’s because of the remaining milk solids at the bottom of the pan getting roasted and caramelized, that the color of the butter fat changes from golden to amber. To develop a really rich and nutty flavor, let the solids roast for a while. But be careful not to burn them (this happens if they roast for (way) to long). Start taste-testing the butter fat once it turns amber colored and turn off the heat, once you think it’s nutty and delicious.
6. Pour the ghee through a paper towel or triple-layered cheesecloth lined fine mesh stainless steel strainer to remove any roasted milk solids and impurities.
7. Voila – delicious homemade ghee ready to be eaten will all the things (…but mostly popcorn, right?).

Storage and shelf life

1. Store the ghee in glass jars (preferably sterilized and completely dried).
2. Like butter, ghee too turns solid at room temperature and below.
3. Ghee has a very long shelf life and can be stored for months and months. Technically it doesn’t have to be stored in the fridge, but I personally like to do that. The shelf life is said to be about 3 months at room temperature and about 1 year in the fridge. But then again – I can’t imagine ever making a batch of ghee large enough to last me an entire year, if you get what I’m sayin’…

Do you want to print the instructions on how to make ghee? I’ve got you!