Garlic Butter Sauce (For Seafood, Steak and Vegetables)

Whip up a batch of Garlic Butter Sauce in just 7 minutes! Butter Garlic Sauce requires just 5 ingredients and makes the best dipping sauce.

While melted butter makes EVERYTHING better, our favorite way to use this garlic butter recipe is on seafood recipes, prime rib recipes (as a prime rib sauce), steak recipes and vegetables recipes!

Butter Garlic Sauce

The only ingredients you need to make this recipe: butter, garlic, garlic powder, lemon and salt. 

When making, be sure to utilize a high quality brand of butter. European style butter tends to be richer and creamier, so would be a great option. Top butter brands we use: Kerrygold, Cabot and Land O’Lakes.

Clarified Butter

If you’re of the belief drawn butter recipes should be made with clarified butter, use ghee instead of regular butter. No other edits to the recipe are required.

If you’re unfamiliar with the difference, clarified butter is regular butter, however the milk solids and water have been removed.

Wikipedia has a nice write up on it if you’re interested in what makes it so special and why you may want to use it.

Two Ways To Make and Reheat

You can either use the stove top (preferred method) or the microwave.

Stovetop Directions – To make on the stovetop, all you need to do is heat all the ingredients over low heat and let mingle for 5 minutes before removing from the heat.

To reheat, just add the solidified sauce to a saucepan and heat over low, until the butter is fully melted.

Microwave Directions – Add all the ingredients to a microwave-safe bowl and stir to combine. Heat for 30 seconds, remove and stir. Heat for 10 seconds, remove and stir. Repeat in 10 second increments until the butter is fully melted.

To reheat in the microwave, Heat for 10 seconds, remove and stir. Repeat in 10 second increments until the butter is fully melted.

Ways To Use Garlic Butter Sauce

Garlic Butter Sauce For Seafood

This is the perfect dipping sauce for seafood, along with our cajun sauce! Think Baked Lobster Tail, Steamer Clams, Instant Pot Salmon and more! As seafood tends to be salty, make sure to watch how much salt you add to the sauce.

Marinade

Double up on the recipe to use as a marinade. Just make sure to reserve a bit of it to utilize as a dipping sauce. Make sure you cool the sauce before adding to any protein as to avoid cooking it.

Butter Sauce for Crab Legs

While this butter garlic sauce is fantastic on almost all seafood, it’s an excellent dipping sauce for crab legs. We serve it when making Baked Crab Legs along with a batch of Boom Boom Sauce.

Pasta

Cook up a batch of pasta and drizzle with this sauce to make garlic butter noodles. This butter sauce for pasta would even make a great sauce choice for cheese or lobster ravioli.

Lamb

Serve it alongside your favorite lamb recipe for added flavor: Sous Vide Leg of Lamb, or Smoked Leg of Lamb.

Variations

While perfect as written, sometimes we like to mix it up a bit! Here are some variations we use from time to time, as the mood strikes.

Lemon Garlic Sauce – As written, this is a garlic lemon butter sauce. You can absolutely remove the lemon, if your prefer, but the fresh lemon adds a nice level of acidity and zing to the sauce.

Garlic Herb Butter – To make, just throw in some fresh herbs of your choice. Think thyme, rosemary or basil. Start with 1 tsp. and go from there. This would be great on our famous prime rib recipe.

Compound Butter – To make a compound recipe, perfect to use on Picanha, just mix all the ingredients in a small mixing bowl, wrap in plastic wrap, and let refrigerate for at least an hour to set. You must use softened butter to make this version.

Roasted Garlic Butter – To make, just replace the garlic cloves with roasted garlic cloves. No other edits are required.

Honey Garlic Sauce– Add a hit of sweetness by adding a tablespoon of honey to the mix when cooking. No other edits are required.

Expert Tips

• Keep the heat setting to low, as butter can scorch quickly. We also recommend keeping an eye on it as it cooks just to make sure.
• Salted or Unsalted Butter for Steak – Use what you have on hand. If using salted butter, omit half a teaspoon of salt or adjust to taste.
• Adjust the amount of minced garlic to suit your preference. Our motto, when it comes to garlic, is “go big or go home” but you may not share that view. Start with 1.5 tbsp and move up from there.
• Keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
• We don’t recommend freezing. It takes only 7 minutes to re-make and you want top quality.