This garlic herb compound butter blend uses scapes from your garden instead of garlic cloves but is still absolutely delicious and perfect on top of steaks or on bread.

Compound butter is one of my favorite things to have on hand simply because it makes it so much easier to grab a pat and throw it on a cob of fresh sweet corn or atop a delicious grilled steak.

We usually make garlic butter with cloves of garlic and some fresh herbs, but since I just harvested a bunch of garlic scapes, I wanted to use them up in a few different ways.

So, I made a pound of this compound butter using those curly scapes in place of garlic. I also made some garlic herb salt, and some garlic scape powder by dehydrating a little of it.

What is compound butter?

Compound butter is just butter and herbs, liquids, or other seasonings blended. Some people call it herb butter. Regardless, it’s just butter mixed with other ingredients.

It makes a kind of “sauce” for lack of a better term that you can use to quickly season meats like venison steak, poultry or fish, or use on steamed or otherwise cooked veggies like corn on the cob or green beans.

It’s also great to make garlic bread out of dutch oven bread served alongside some venison bolognese or lasagna.

This is really one of the best ways to preserve garlic scapes. It doesn’t take a lot of time and can save time in the kitchen later.

You can store garlic scape butter in the refrigerator for a few weeks. Or, if you’re like me, you can make individual servings of it by placing it in an ice cube tray or similar and letting it freeze, then store it in a freezer bag in the freezer and pull out what you need when you need it. Easy.

What are garlic scapes?

Garlic scapes are the stem and flower buds of hard neck varieties of garlic. The curly green stalks grow in late spring or early summer. First growing up straight, then curling over. Once they’re bent over, they’re ready to harvest. They kind of look like really big green beans.

You harvest them so that hardneck garlic bulbs grow large instead of the plant’s energy going to the flower bud. Harvesting them results in larger bulbs… which is what we want.

The scapes, though, hold the same flavor as garlic, although slightly more pungent. They’re delicious and can be used in multiple ways, this is, by far my favorite way to use them, though.

How to make compound butter

If you’ve never made compound butter before, you’re in for a treat. Not only is it a super simple recipe it looks gorgeous, saves time later on in the kitchen and it smells divine.

1. Begin with room temperature butter. I prefer salted butter.
2. Finely chop up garlic scapes and a handful of herbs.
3. Add herbs and garlic scapes to softened butter in a bowl and mix thoroughly.

4. Enjoy fresh, by putting the butter in the refrigerator in an airtight container, or place it in the freezer for more extended storage. I prefer to put the butter into ice cube trays and then pop them out, place them in a freezer, and pop out individual servings from the freezer when I need them.

Alternatively, you can make a roll of butter, wrap it in parchment paper, or a piece of wax paper and cut off a pat when you need it, or again, freeze it for extended storage.

Note, if you do not have garlic scapes, check your local farmer’s market in the spring or you can use fresh, minced garlic in their place.

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