I'm with Faith on this one - I couldn't tell you when I last saw or used a recipe that called for salted butter. And I haven't bought any in years.

My more professional cookbooks (not BH&G) all suggest using unsalted butter for that very reason. They do on America's Test Kitchen as well.

I'm guessing the same reasoning is behind why all the recipes in certain cookbooks want me to use low-sodium chicken broth.

I've used both over the years for baking and never really noticed a difference provided I remember to add salt to taste. For baked goods that call for salt already, I don't add any if I'm using unsalted butter and leave it out if I'm not. I've gotten used to slightly lower sodium content, though. When in doubt, taste.

You should always be using unsalted butter for baking. If salt is an ingredient in the recipe, then it will tell you exactly how much to add...there should be no guess work here.

I only buy unsalted butter, for both baking and toast, cooking, etc. I don't miss whatever amount of salt they add to regular butter one bit.

I love unsalted butter for toast and bread.

So confused here. Unsalted butter should ALWAYS be used for baking.

I thought that same thing when I read this - can't recall ever seeing a recipe that called specifically for salted butter. I love the sweet taste of unsalted butter!

Frosting! Unsalted butter for frostings/icings can make all the difference.

Salted butter? It exists?

Yep, the answer is to use unsalted butter for your cooking (particularly baking) and use the salted butter for the table. And it doesn't even matter if you don't use your salted butter right away, since it will keep much longer due to the salt!

I've never used salted butter for cooking. I've seen it in stores but have always wondered who used it. Apparently someone does :)

I only ever buy unsalted butter, even for table use.

Victoria -- to answer your question, it depends on which brand of butter you use. Cabot salted butter has 720 mg per stick, Land O'Lakes 680 mg per salted stick and Kerrygold (YUM!) has 840 mg/stick (maybe that's why I like it so much?).

1/4 teaspoon has 580 mg sodium, so you'd have to add 1.25 t to the Cabot, 1 1/6 t to the Land O'Lakes, or 1.5 t to the Kerrygold. As a general recommendation, I would say start with 1 to 1 1/4 t.

One thing you can do with your lingering sticks of unsalted butter is sprinkle them with coarse sea salt (or knead it in). I once had a French butter this was and it was to die for.

You could also make compound butters with it by mixing in honey, herbs or other flavors. Yum.

Hope this helps.

OMG sorry -- my calculations are way off (I forgot to convert)!!

Add: 1/3 t to any of them will basically replicate it.

In a recipe, I would do 1/4 to 1/2 t.

(forget what I said in the first post; do NOT use 1.5 t, OMG that would be waay too much)

I have never seen a recipe calling for salted butter and I have never understood its purpose. On toast? but then jam wouldn't taste good on it... Salted butter was just an invention to disguise the taste of rancid butter.

@slipperymarshmallow Actually, the purpose of the salt is to keep the butter from going rancid. There's also the fact that salt makes things taste more like themselves.

Victoria, I still stand by what I said before: you can use salted butter for all purposes if you like. Supposedly there's a difference in taste but I've never noticed.

i occasionally buy salted butter for toast, i think it's way tastier than the unsalted stuff.

now, i know you're only supposed to use unsalted butter in baking, but if i have a stick of salted laying around, and i want chocolate chip cookies, then i'll just use it, and omit the salt in the recipe. i mean, they're chocolate chip cookies, my family never complains that i used salted butter.

that said, if i was baking for other people, i'd stick with the unsalted stuff.

oh, slipperymarshmallow, salted butter (ideally the cultured kind) and jam (ideally apricot, as far as I'm concerned) on toast (ideally a slightly crisped baguette) is one of the great pleasures of existing as a human being. Try it immediately.

I am also having trouble ever remembering a recipe calling for *salted* butter. I love butter, and I love salt, but I am skeptical of salted butter.

Like others have said, keep unsalted as your primary butter.

- Amelia of Gradually Greener

Salted butter DOES exist however I only use unsalted butter for the reasons stated above. However, my mother-in-law and some of my older friends/coworkers have expressed surprise at my choice to use unsalted. I'm not sure if its a generational *thing*; i.e., it was a standard to use salted at one time.

I actually only use unsalted for baking. In any savory dish, or on toast, I use salted butter. The salt with the toast makes the jam sweeter, or if I'm not having jam, lets the butter flavor stand out. In savory dishes its spread out among a whole pot or pan or what have you and doesn't make much difference. I am also notorious for undersalting my food though, so if I didn't use salted butter it would probably be worse. But salted butter was a staple growing up and I only go out and buy sweet cream butter if I am making desserts or any sort of pastry/baked good.

I, too, only buy unsalted butter. Why would I need salt in the butter when I add salt to dishes separately? I suppose my choice is for health reasons, but I've never had a problem using it in baking, or anything else.

Like many others mentioned, I use unsalted butter for all of my baking. But that being said, I have tried salted butter in baking recipes, but I always adjust the amount of salt I add to the recipe accordingly.

I only buy unsalted butter. I agree that salted butter tastes better on toast...so I use unsalted and sprinkle my own sea salt on top...mmm.

I am curious though... Why would you keep buying unsalted butter if it is stacking up in your freezer because you don't use it?

I'm with AT on this one... unsalted in recipes, salted for the table (and even then, I really prefer unsalted on the table, too). Too many recipes come out too salty if you have both salt and salted butter in them.

I don't think it's necessary to be quite so strict or mean about someone using salted butter for baking; Clothilde Dusolier (chocolateandzucchini.com) has a recipe for tarte tatin which calls for salted butter, so it is sometimes used in baking...my mother always used salted butter and just didn't add extra salt to her baked goods. And I dare you to go to a small town in Idaho and even find a stick of unsalted butter on the shelves. Impossible, or at least it was when I lived there.

Wow. I always buy salted butter -- my mom taught me that it was the UNsalted butter that was weird and useless! I don't bake much, but I use salted butter for all of my cooking (and add the specified amount of salt on top of that!). Everything still tastes good. But I might have to try this unsalted stuff....

I just limit/eliminate the salt called-for in recipes when using salted butter. Some stores simply don't carry it unsalted, and when I wanna make cookies, I wanna make 'em NOW! Haha. (This happened just last night!)

I also tend to like my sweets a little salty. A chocolate chip cookie that bites the back of your cheeks is awfully delicious.

I'm going to have to go with the salted butter whenever you're actually going to taste it: like on toast, steamed veggies, etc. Especially if you buy good salted butter (the European brands--French and Irish--are great!). It's delicious. But a really good stick of salted butter can be expensive, so I don't cook with it.

And I second prolix for the salted butter and apricot jam combo: truly heavenly!

I'm not a salty person. If I want my butter to taste salty I can add it in myself.

I'm probably going to get yelled at for this, but I use salted and unsalted interchangably when I bake. I, nor anyone I bake for, can tell the difference.

Unsalted is all I buy. But I agree that salted butter tastes better on toast and jam. Just adds a little oomph of flavor! But really, it's so easy to ever so lightly add your own on top, I would say... make it easy on yourself. Unsalted all the way.

Generally speaking, I use unsalted butter for baking and cooking and save the salted butter for spreading. But, I have a good friend who swears that all her baked goods taste best when she uses salted butter - she feels like something is missing if she doesn't use salted butter. Personally, I can't tell the difference.

I do wonder, though, since so much of baking is about chemical reactions, whether salted vs. unsalted butter makes a difference in how something rises, how evenly it cooks, etc. Does anyone know?

I don't think I've ever bought salted butter. If a recipe called for salted butter, I'd ignore it and use unsalted. Recipes aren't engraved rules anyway. They're more like guidelines.

Victoria - Perhaps you're thinking that when a recipe calls for "butter," they mean salted. But, in fact, it's only calling for salted butter when it specifies "salted butter." I've never seen a recipe that calls for salted butter.

The only "salted" butter I purchase is pasture butter. I only buy that salted because it only comes that way. I use this kind of butter to slather on radishes, which I immediately dip in truffle salt. OMG! Best appetizer EVER!

Other than that, I only buy unsalted. I don't use butter on toast or anything like that (aside from the radishes.)

I only cook or bake with butter, so it's always unsalted. I like that I can control the amount of salt in recipes. Most recipes are far too salty to begin with, so adding salted butter would make them awful to my taste buds.

salted butter is of lower quality. they add salt to cover it up.
i use unsalted butter for EVERYTHING. except for some nice european butters i get occasionally.
even on toast, etc. i just sprinkle a few grains of salt if i need it. sea salt.
high quality all the way around!

It doesn't even register with me-I use salted butter in everything.

Sorry but this is a stupid question. Use what you prefer and stop buying what you don't use if you don't want clutter in your fridge.

You can use it to make clarified butter (Indian term is "ghee") and top Indian faltbreads or basmati rice with it or use it in place of oil for grilling. I know that they use it in many restaurants for the same.

@YoJess Yep -- my mom always told me to use salted butter. It was only once I started cooking and baking more and reading cookbooks more thoroughly that I realized how much better UNsalted was. Then again, mom's a salt freak.

To echo what's been said above: Unsalted gives you more control over what you are preparing and will go rancid more quickly because there's no salt to act as a preservative.

I like Cabot's and Organic Valley's Cultured Unsalted Butter. mmmm....

I use salted butter for everything. Even sweet recipes, as I think most sweet things taste better with a hint of salt.

I absolutely love a thick slice of crusty, rustic country bread with some good quality salted butter. Sometimes I even sprinkle a bit of Maldon sea salt on top of my salted butter.

Yummy! :9

It is simple, really. Salted butter was invented for the same reason that a bunch of other packaged foods were invented: to save time. In the case of salted butter, you save the time it would have taken you to salt whatever food you use the butter for. It works in theory, especially where butter makes up more than half of the recipe, but in practice, butter represents only a teeny tiny bit of the dish you are making, so whether the butter is salted or not doesn't make any difference in what the dish will ultimately taste like. In short, salted butter was invented for extremely lazy people. There.

I personally find that sulted butter doesn't at all taste like butter and salt - it tastes like acid, and I steer clear of it. North America is the only continent where salted butter is commonplace. Food for thought...

I disagree, Viktoria - Salted butter is very common here in New Zealand - most shops sell both, but if one's missing, it's the unsalted kind.

I also wonder why Victoria (the one with the question) buys butter she doesn't use...oh, well, shopping habits can be hard to break!