Black Garlic Butter with Lemon

With the deep umami and liquorice notes of Black Garlic against the lemony tang from the grated zest, this Black Garlic Butter with Lemon really shines. Add to that Dill, complementing the anise flavours and parsley, to add some fresh minerality, you have the perfect accompaniment for any meat.

 

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• Why You Will Love This
• The Ingredients
• How to Make This
• Meal Prep

Why You Will Love This 

TL;DR

Or:Black Garlic is Pure Umami Magic (and You Need It in Your Life)

• Takes Literally 5 Minutes – Toss everything in a food processor *. Blitz. Done. Boom—fancy butter.
• The Obsession Started Here – Big jar of homemade black garlic = endless delicious experiments. (Looking at you, Sourdough Chocolate Black Garlic Bread. Yes, it’s as wild and amazing as it sounds.)
• What Is It? – Garlic that’s been slow-cooked into sweetness using the Maillard reaction. Think rich umami, caramel, aged balsamic, and a whisper of fruit. Garlic, but make it gourmet.
• Barely Garlicky, Deeply Complex – No harsh bite—just mellow, dark, sticky magic. If garlic had a grown-up, brooding alter ego, this is it.
• Easy to Make at Home – Got a rice cooker * or pressure cooker? You’ve got black garlic. Super simple method in the post.
• Compound Butter Heaven – Black Garlic Compound Butter = flavour rocket for:
  • Roast chicken (especially the lemony herb kind)
  • Steak (hello, date night)
  • Burgers with Black Garlic Aioli (life-changing, no exaggeration)
  • Fresh sourdough or brioche pretzel buns (yes, please)

Black Garlic

The basic idea came of course from the large jar of Black Garlic I made and had to play with. And play with I did. I also made an incredible Sourdough Chocolate Black Garlic Bread, with notes of fresh coffee. I’m officially in love.

Black garlic is garlic that has been very slowly caramelised, using the maillard reaction to draw out all its sweetness. It has only a tiny hint of garlic flavour left, while the dominant notes are those of umami, caramel, aged balsamic and fruit. It also has a few benefits you can find here.

You can find a super easy way to make it in your rice or pressure cooker in this post.

Everyone Needs an Extra Special Compound Butter

I don’t know about you, but I’m hooked on compound butter since my mom made her very first garlic bread for parties. It was a novelty back then (Yes, I’m that old!) or maybe it was just very new to me, but god was that stuff good!

I still love it (and occasionally much a whole baguette filled with it for dinner…sorry, not sorry!), but have since found so many more uses for garlic and herb butter. The most famous one being my Garlic Herb Lemon Roast chicken, which you can find in its Black Garlic incarnation here.

This Black Garlic compound butter doesn’t make just roast chicken better, but is also amazing on steak or these life changing Burger with Black Garlic Aioli. Or simply spread on some fresh sourdough bread. Can I suggest Sourdough Brioche Pretzel Buns?

Takes 5 Minutes To Make

You literally just throw all the ingredients in your food processor*, whizz them until smooth and that’s it. There aren’t many flavor boosts that are this efficient!

The Ingredients

• My goal was, beside the integration of Black garlic, to have herbs that support it best.
• Which would be either tarragon or dill, for their anise notes, that go well with the black garlic’s liquorice flavours, after you had it caramelise for weeks. No fresh tarragon was anywhere to be found, so dill it was.
• And parsley, to add fresh herbiness and minerality to it and because it is always fantastic in any compound butter.
• The lemon zest lifts up all the flavours and adds zing to it.
• Butter – Use good quality unsalted butter here and add salt manually to it. I used Irish butter, considering I live in Ireland.
• Season with salt and pepper to taste. I use kosher salt in most of my recipes, unless otherwise specified.

Equipment Used

chopping board

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zester

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knife

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food processor

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*

How to Make this

In the Food Processor

It’s incredibly easy to make. A few seconds if you have a food processor*. Just throw everything in and pulse, until you have creamy herb and garlic speckled butter.

By Hand

Or a few minutes by hand. Just let the butter soften a bit, then mash the Black Garlic with a fork, chop the herbs, season with salt and pepper and mix everything together until you have a homogenous mass.

Shape and Store

Scrape every last bit out of the bowl onto a bit of clingfilm, roll and twirl both ends, to make a tight sausage form and leave to firm up in the fridge.

What to Use It For

Now from the very obvious use of melting it on freshly grilled steak, you can put this on top of fresh Bread. Try it with my Wholewheat Sourdough Pretzel Buns or the Wholewheat Sourdough Sandwich bread. It’s delicious. My targeted use was a stunning Black Garlic Roast Chicken, which I first brined (the brine also included Black Garlic) and then topped my Summer Salad with. With all those incredible flavours, it barely needed any dressing.

 

Meal Prep

I actually prepared this butter 2 weeks ago and stored it in my freezer, as I was already planning the chicken. You can do the same, so you always have a super quick seasoning for an ad-hoc roast on hand. It will also keep for two weeks or so in the fridge. Or you can freeze it in slices for up to 6 months, so you always have some at hand when you feel like having steak or chicken or just some warm fresh bread spread with it.

FAQ

Other recipes you might enjoy

Now I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Have you tried this? Did you enjoy it?
What other recipes would you like to see?

If you enjoyed this recipe, please share. It helps me a lot.

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