Once You Melt Butter in the Microwave with My Brilliant Trick, You’ll Always Do it

As a recipe developer and frequent baker, I use a lot of butter. And depending on the project, soft cookies, chewy brownies, or garlic bread, I often need to melt butter. While there are a few ways to pull it off easily in a home kitchen, none are as quick and easy as using the microwave. However, melting butter in the microwave can be a nerve-wracking affair. You have to watch it like a hawk to avoid butter popping and splattering all over the inside of it. Personally, I’ve had to clean out my microwave after leaving the butter in for seemingly all of 1 second too long more times than I care to admit. 

That is, until I learned this genius trick for melting butter in the microwave that guarantees zero mess: Using the butter wrapper as a cover for the bowl you’re melting the butter in. The best part? You don’t need to pay any special attention to the butter while it does its thing. 

• It requires no special equipment. This simple adjustment is the solution to one of those problems that plagues plenty of home cooks. While there are gadgets available to try and solve it, it uses something you already have on hand.
• You don’t have to wash anything extra. I know you can also cover your bowl of butter with a small plate when melting butter in the microwave, but I have always found this inhibits the melting process, making the whole thing take more time and the plate ripping hot. Using the wrapper as a lid eliminates both of those unintended consequences and you don’t have to wash anything extra. 
• You can use the wrapper to grease a baking dish. Many recipes call to smear a bit of extra butter in the baking vessel to grease it. Instead of dirtying your fingers, you can use the buttery underside of the wrapper to grease your baking pan.