Basil Butter

I have had a lot of basil this year and have been trying to find ways to use it all up.  One of the things I have been making out of my basil is basil butter.  I have a ton of it frozen already and so far I think I like the basil butter better than pesto.  Pesto of course has a much stronger basil taste, while basil butter adds a milder more pleasant basil flavor.  I love it on toast, or you can also add it to whatever dish you may be cooking in place of regular butter.  If you make a lot of it up like I have been you can just freeze it.

Mixed basil leaves ready to be made into basil butter.

This is a mixture of sweet, lemon, lime, blue spice, cinnamon, and genovese red freddy basil.

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How to make Basil Butter:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups loosely packed basil leaves (you can use a mix of whatever types of basils you want, when I make mine I just mix everything together)

1/2 pound of butter, softened

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

In a food processor, chop basil.  Add butter, lemon juice, pepper, garlic and salt.  Blend until smooth.  Drop tablespoons onto a baking sheet, and freeze, or you can also wrap in wax paper, form into sticks, lay out on baking sheet, and freeze.  After frozen you can place frozen butter into freezer bags.  Can be used on toast, to flavor chicken, fish, vegetables, or basically any way you would use regular butter or pesto.

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 Basil butter ready to be frozen on baking sheet.

Some basil butter ready to be frozen in sticks.