This Cajun butter is bursting with rich, spicy flavors, and is sure to be a show-stopper on your dinner table. The butter comes together in just a few minutes and starts off with a scratch-made Cajun seasoning, which is actually pretty easy to put together.
This wicked delicious butter sauce works perfectly with your seafood boil, Cajun chicken, and practically any other food that needs a bit of a flavor boost- just like hot honey butter.
I’m a big fan of making condiments, sauces, and preserved foods. My refrigerator is almost always stocked up with jars of my hot tomato oil, my favorite balsamic pickled onions and some fermented jalapeno hot sauce.
I also recently tried making a batch of jalapeno infused butter with some extra jalapenos that I had at hand, and that kind of inspired me to try my hand at another infused butter.
Quick Look: Cajun Butter
- 🔪 Prep time: 5 minutes.
- ⏲️ Cook time: 0 minutes.
- 👪 Servings: 8.
- 📋 Main ingredients: Butter, Cajun seasoning, garlic, parsley, lemon juice.
- ♨️ Cooking method: Mix → whip until smooth → chill or serve.
- ⭐ Difficulty: Very easy.
- 🥣 Serving ideas: Melt over seafood, grilled chicken, steak, corn on the cob, potato Aligot, or use as a flavorful bread spread.
Jump to:
What's So Great About the Recipe?
- Just like Pesto butter, this infused butter is really versatile. Use it as a spread, a topping or even a marinade.
- You can make it in a big batch and refrigerate or even freeze it- it can last for months!
Recipe Ingredients
Butter: I used unsalted butter as the base for this butter sauce recipe. You can also use the salted version, and adjust the amount of salt you’re adding in towards the end.
Garlic: Minced garlic is a great choice, but you can also finely chop it if you want a bit of texture. Sometimes, I like to use my air fried garlic for a smoky depth.
Garlic powder: For some extra garlic flavor, we also add some garlic powder.
Spices: I used a mix of cayenne, smoked paprika and some Guajillo chili powder.
Dried parsley: Dried parsley brings a beautiful freshness and some nice specks of color throughout. You can also use fresh parsley if you have that at hand.
Lime zest: I used a fair bit of lime zest to bring some zesty, citrusy flavor to this compound butter.
Salt and pepper: And of course, you’ll need some salt and freshly cracked black pepper too.
See recipe card for quantities.
Substitutions & Variations
- If you don’t have the Guajillo chili powder that the recipe calls for, you can substitute it with any other variant of chili powder you can get your hands on.
- You can also quickly put this Cajun butter together by mixing some store-bought Cajun spice mix (or even my homemade Creole seasoning) with softened butter, transferring it to an airtight container, and refrigerating it.
How to Make Cajun Butter From Scratch
Step 1: First, in a mixing bowl, combine all the seasonings and spices.
Step 2: Heat butter in a pan and add in the minced garlic. Sauté for a few minutes on low heat, and then take off heat.
Step 3: Add the seasonings in and give it a good mix. At this point, you can serve this as a Cajun butter dipping sauce.
Step 4: If you want it to have a spreadable consistency, transfer it to a glass container and pop it into the fridge until it solidifies.
Tips & Tricks to Nail the Recipe
- Remember to give the butter a taste before you add in the salt, since most other store-bought spices and seasoning mixes already have salt added in. This can be particularly helpful if you’re trying to keep your sodium intake in check.
- I used dried parsley for this recipe, but you can also use fresh herbs if you want to.
- If you're using only garlic powder, you can skip cooking down the butter sauce and just combine the seasonings with softened butter directly.
- Consider using citrus salt or garlic and parsley salt instead of regular salt to amp up the flavors of this infused butter.
How to Use Cajun Butter
Spread some of this spicy Cajun butter on your morning toast or slather it on some skillet charred corn or grilled corn on the cob.
I personally love serving this with shrimp everytime I run out of my cowboy butter dipping sauce. This Cajun garlic butter can also be a wonderful base for your homemade pasta sauces. Throw some of it into your marinara or tomato-based sauce to jazz it up, or in your roasted garlic Alfredo sauce for that little pop of color.
Troubleshooting & FAQs
The butter keeps fresh in the refrigerator for weeks, and when you want to put it to use, just get it out and let it sit at room temperature for a while. You can also freeze butter if you want it to last longer.
You can freeze Cajun butter for up to 4 months, if not more. Just remember to store it in a freezer-safe container to prevent freezer burn.
To make Cajun butter sauce, just heat the butter a bit or microwave it and add a dash of lemon juice to add flavor to it.
More Condiment Recipes
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
If you tried this Cajun butter or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!
Cajun Butter
Ingredients
- 200 g butter
- 5 garlic minced
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon dried parsley
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon Guajillo chili powder
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon lime zest
Instructions
- First, in a mixing bowl, combine all the seasonings and spices.
- Heat butter in a pan and add in the minced garlic. Saute for a few minutes on low heat, and then take off heat.
- Add the seasonings in and give it a good mix. At this point, you can serve this as a Cajun butter dipping sauce.
- If you want it to have a spreadable consistency, transfer it to a glass container and pop it into the fridge until it solidifies.
