Which Brand of Butter Is the Best?

• Brands of butter can differ majorly by salt content, American vs. European style, and even the wrapper.
• Doing a blind taste test, I was able to immediately pick out the butter my mom used to use growing up, so it was difficult to be objective about such a childhood-based ingredient.
• Overall, my top butter picks were Kerrygold’s Irish Butter and Finlandia for their strong flavors.
• Store-brand is not always a worse buy, but it was in this case.

Butter is everywhere, whether it’s the main ingredient in croissants and buttercream frosting or as the perfect topping to a piece of toast. It makes everything better, from cake to mashed potatoes, and even vegans love faux butter.

I love butter, but I don’t really have a go-to. I typically buy whatever’s on sale, so I set up a blind taste test between six salted kinds of butter to determine the best variety for eating.

All butters were purchased at a New York Shop Rite, and the store-brand package is the only one not sold nationwide. They were warmed on a stovetop (baker hack: if you need room-temperature butter for a recipe, place the stick on top of the stove while the oven heats up), and then spread on grocery store ciabatta and baked dutch yellow potatoes. I unwrapped all the butters and assigned them letters A-F so as not to know which was which.

Here’s a taste test between six top kinds of butter.