What’s the one piece of cookware that our chef partners would always ask us to carry? A butter warmer. Basically a mini saucepan, a butter warmer is a small, ¾-quart pot with a long handle. The butter warmer’s small size is exactly what makes it so versatile. Widely used in restaurants, keep reading to learn why a butter warmer deserves a place in your home kitchen as well.
What Is a Butter Warmer?
A butter warmer features a small pot with a long handle. Most often they’re made of stainless steel, a nonreactive cookware material, making them ideal for acidic sauces and vinaigrettes. One of the best features of our Butter Warmer—beyond the usual 5-ply construction for even heat conduction and distribution—is its rolled rim for spill-free pouring.
A butter warmer typically holds only 1 to 2 cups of liquid. In addition to warming small amounts of fat and other ingredients, that small capacity is ideal for things like garlic confit, since you’ll need only a small amount of oil to cover ingredients. And since it’s stainless steel, you can whisk away when making sauces without worrying about scratching the surface.
Common Butter Warmer Uses
Butter warmers are known in professional kitchens to be a versatile piece of cookware because of, not despite, their size. Below are a few uses for a butter warmer, whether you’re baking, cooking, or reheating leftovers.
Melting Butter
It’s called a butter warmer for a reason. Our 5-Ply Stainless Clad construction means even heating without worry of burning, so you can perfectly reduce butter and other fats to a liquid state without burning. Use melted butter in baked goods or to drizzle over popcorn.
Warming Liquids
The butter warmer’s small size means it’s great for warming up small amounts of liquid, including sauces, gravy, and syrups. It’s ideal for infusing herbs or spices into liquid (a simple syrup for cocktails and mocktails, for example). If you’re without a microwave, the butter warmer is perfect for warming leftover coffee or tea. You can even heat a small amount of milk (dairy or otherwise), whisking until foamy, to pour into your preferred morning beverage.
Preparing Delicate Sauces
The 5-ply construction, with even heating and heat distribution, makes it ideal for delicate tasks, too. You’ll have more success with caramel, hollandaise, and béarnaise sauces, for example, when they’re made over steady, low heat.
Single Servings
If you need to reheat just a single serving of something, why reach for something bigger? A smaller pot will heat more quickly and efficiently, and it’s easier to clean up.
4 Reasons Why You Need a Butter Warmer
A few key factors make a butter warmer an essential piece of cookware that belongs in your kitchen.
1. Precision and Control
The small size of a butter warmer makes it especially reliable for low-heat tasks like caramel and hollandaise. You can more easily control the temperature and avoid overcooking, burning, and curdling.
2. Versatility Beyond Butter
As highlighted above, the butter warmer goes way beyond melting butter. Use it to reheat small portions, to infuse fats and syrups, and to make a variety of sauces, for starters.
3. Enhanced Cooking Experience
The small butter warmer will more efficiently warm up anything you put in it, making it especially convenient for small jobs like warming milk or cream for doughs, melting butter for baked goods, and infusing a simple syrup for cocktails.
4. Professional Feel
The butter warmer is one of our top-sold items for restaurants. When you add the butter warmer to your own kitchen, it adds that touch of elegance-meets-cheffy feel to your kitchen and dining table.
Ready to Shop?
- Stainless Clad Butter Warmer
- ¾ QT
- $79
Whether you’re melting butter, making garlic confit, or warming buttermilk to form the base of a sticky bun dough, the diminutive but oh-so-useful butter warmer belongs in your kitchen. Now that you’ve read more about our butter warmer to see why the chef-approved piece of cookware will improve your cooking, it’s time to add one to your collection.
