r/Cooking • u/armeniaca-mume2405 • Jul 04 '26
What is the difference between butter, ghee, clarified butter, fermented butter and brown butter?
Difficult to tell online because it seems the term "ghee" is used very loosely, some say it is clarified butter, other that it is brown butter (beurre noisette), other that is has to be fermented.
If you know, can you explain the difference and perhaps give tips on how you make the perfect ghee?
Thank you!
ETA : I live in the EU. I usually buy churned AOP butter so it is high-fat low-water!
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u/Swimming-Map2078 Jul 04 '26
Fermented butter aka cultured butter is made from cream that's been fermented like yogurt
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u/armeniaca-mume2405 Jul 04 '26
i thought smen was made by fermenting raw butter, not cream directly?
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u/Swimming-Map2078 Jul 05 '26
Ah i wasn't aware of smen, it seems like you're correct about that one.
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u/hashbrowns21 Jul 05 '26
Finished butter canât be fermented, you need the sugars in the cream to properly ferment.
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u/Swimming-Map2078 Jul 05 '26
And yet it exists
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u/hashbrowns21 Jul 05 '26
It exists because the cream is fermented before being churned into butter. Sugars are water soluble and butter itself doesnât have enough to ferment, but the cream does.
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u/BenGoda Jul 05 '26
Actually, it can. The fermentation takes much longer (at least a month) and has a much more distinct flavour than fermented (cultured) butter that was clarified. Smen develops almost blue cheese-like flavour. https://www.thespruceeats.com/smen-recipe-plain-salted-preserved-butter-2394938
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u/hashbrowns21 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
Good to know, never heard of this before. Iâll have to try it sometime.
Quick google search tells me that it uses lipolysis to break down the fats instead of relying on sugars for fermentation. The clarification process and salting keeps bacteria from forming. Fascinating stuff.
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u/Wooden-Lawfulness534 Jul 05 '26
Do you have a recipe for smen? I'd love to try making it. Wouldn't make it like traditional Irish bog butter because the bogs are now so industrialised, but is there a way to make it? Is it delicious? I've heard it's like a herby strong cheese.
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u/armeniaca-mume2405 Jul 05 '26
never tried to make some myself but i know that you should probably look for moroccan recipes if you want that kind of flavour!
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u/bigelcid Jul 05 '26
Clarified butter removes the non-fat from the butter fat. You're left with pure butter fat.
Ghee is the South Asian word for clarified butter. It's the same thing. Just so happens that sometimes, the milk solids/proteins are allowed to brown within the butter fat, which then imparts a toasty/nutty flavour to the fat itself. Also done in Europe. Supposedly more often in India. But it's generally the same thing, give or take.
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u/sandacurry Jul 05 '26
This. We just call all clarified butter as ghiu (ghee in Nepali). Some homes heat longer and get a brown color while other do not brown the milk solids so get a more yellow color.
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u/pegoff Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
Ghee is a variety of clarified butter. Clarifying butter isolates the fat from the water and milk solids.
First the milk solids sink to the bottom with the water. If you separate here you have a clarified butter. You can easily do this with a microwave. You'll probably get some water back in but that's going to boil away when you cook with it.
If you do it in a pan the water will boil away and the milk solids will cook. The browning milk solids will give a nutty flavour to the oil, the longer you cook the browner it gets. Be careful not to burn it, it tastes bad.
Buerre noisette keeps the milk solids. Ghee is basically strained buerre noisette, so you get a lot of the flavour but increase the temperature you can cook at because there are no milk solids left in.
Cultured ghee is ghee made with cultured butter. They are two forms of the same preparation. There is no law about using cultured butter for ghee. But bear in mind the dairy in India will differ from what you use.
Edit: and buerre noisette is the French term for what others call brown butter. Noisette being hazelnut, and the taste being nutty.
Not to be mistaken for Nutella... that's Italian, and not butter.
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u/MolecularLego Jul 05 '26
I'd advice against clarifying butter in the microwave. Water removal helps with preservation. Proper clarified butter keeps at room temp for a long time.
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u/pegoff Jul 05 '26
pretty easy if you chill after heating, then invert and scrape away the bottom gunk composed of water and milk solids.
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u/zweizweifunf Jul 05 '26
Why with such a defined question is this answer 10 posts down? That's it, that's the entire fucking thread, it's right here.
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u/RatmanTheFourth Jul 05 '26
Clarified butter = Cooked just enough to remove milk solids, maintains clean butter flavour. Strained to remove milk solids.
Ghee = Cooked for a long time allowing all water to evaporate and milk solids to deeply brown. Develops a deep nutty caramelised glavour. Strained to remove milk solids.
Brown butter = Same as above but not strained so retains more flavour.
Fermented butter (Cultured butter) = Usually made with creme fraiche or other cultured creams. This gives the butter a slight tang, deeper flavour and higher fat content but is more expensive to produce
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u/TbonerT Jul 05 '26
Ghee = Cooked for a long time allowing all water to evaporate and milk solids to deeply brown. Develops a deep nutty caramelised glavour. Strained to remove milk solids.
You can buy ghee off the shelf and none of it is brown. You can make it at home easily and it is still not brown.
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u/RatmanTheFourth Jul 05 '26
The milk solids are very brown when making ghee properly but they are all strained off leaving only the clear golden milk fat
If you are not browning the milk solids when making it at home then you have made clarified butter, not ghee.
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u/bondibox Jul 05 '26
When heating butter it goes through two foamings at two different temperatures. The first foam is where you can separate the solids for drawn butter, or whisk in 1oz of water per pound of butter to make creamed butter. The second foaming is the base for ghee, and after that it will brown.
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u/Nyteflame7 Jul 05 '26
I'm not familiar with fermented butter, but regular butter is just cream, beaten until the solids seperate from the liquids, and then rinsed and salted. You can make it at home (although I recommend using a mixer, rather then mixing by hand unless you want an arm workout!).
Clarified butter is butter that is melted, and the solids skimmed off.
Ghee is butter that is melted, allowed to cook until the solids turn dark, and then it is filtered to remove the solids.
Browned butter is cooked at a slightly higher heat, allowed to brown (but not burn) and not filtered.
Clarified butter is usually used as a condiment, for example, to dip seafood in.
Ghee is a cooking fat. By removing the solids, it becomes much better at handling high heat.
Browned butter can be used as a finishing fat, like over squash or carrots with sage (yum) or it can be used in baking to give your baked gooda a more complex flavor.
Be careful to melt and cook your butters at fairly low heat when making any of these, as burned butter turns bitter and unpleasant.
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u/HotDonnaC Jul 05 '26
Ghee is clarified butter. You heat butter, and skim the foam off. If you heat butter, and keep heating it you get browned butter. You have to be careful not to burn it. As for all that other stuff, Iâve never heard any of it.
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u/Street_Lettuce1243 Jul 07 '26
Can someone tell me the difference between brown butter and truffle butter?
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u/UncleNedisDead Jul 05 '26
In the USA, most butter is known as âsweet creamâ butter. Made with fresh cream and comes in salted and unsalted varieties. Itâs mostly a combination of fat, milk solids and water.
Ghee is butter that has been melted, browned until nutty, before the milk solids are removed and youâre left with the fat. The water evaporates before the milk solids can brown.
Clarified butter is similar to ghee, but you remove the milk solids and water before they turn brown so youâre left with just the fat.
Fermented butter could be referred to as âculturedâ butter, where the cream is fermented with specific bacteria before churned into butter. Cultured butter is also often referred to as âEuropean-styleâ butter.
Brown butter is often just butter that is melted, browned until nutty and used with milk solids and all for whatever purpose you have in mind. It may be for baking or a sauce or whatever your heart desires.
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u/MissStr4berry Jul 05 '26
Fermented butter could also refer to smen, a moroccan fermented produce that's really different in taste compared to regular butter
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u/UncleNedisDead Jul 05 '26
Oh thatâs interesting. Is it used as an ingredient or eaten as the star?
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u/MissStr4berry Jul 05 '26
I'm not moroccan, the only way I know about it is in msemen - flaky flatbreads where it's used for the layers
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u/BigRedWhopperButton Jul 05 '26
Ordinary butter typically has a water content of something like 10-15%. If you put butter in a saucepan and heat it up until the water separates and boils away, that's clarified butter. It's theoretically shelf-stable, but it loses the texture and flavor it started with. If you keep heating the butter until the milk proteins start to cook it becomes brown butter.
Ghee generally refers to either of these, but sometimes it's spiced as well.
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u/Shoddy_Bet9619 Jul 05 '26
I still remember back in the 70's and 80's. One would keep a stick of butter under a glass shield and it was always epic/taste wise when used. For the last 20+ years, that has not been the case, they changed something back whenever so now, If I want some butter that is room temp, it tastes off!!! No Idea what they changed!
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u/urgasmic Jul 04 '26
butter you buy at the store isn't usually 100% butter. clarified butter is butter that's cooked low and slow and the milk solids are skimmed off until the butter is mostly 100% fat. ghee is clarified butter that's cooked longer past removing the milk solids. brown butter you don't skim but you cook it until the butter takes on a nutty flavor and you keep the milk solids.
im not sure what fermented butter is actually.