There’s nothing better than warm, crusty bread straight from the oven dipped in olive oil. 

Unless it’s warm, crusty bread straight from the oven with butter spread on top.

I love both pairings and couldn’t choose a favorite.

But sometimes I don’t want to deal with the mess of dipping my bread in olive oil, and the extra dish that inevitably results.  As for butter, the bread has to be hot if the butter is going to spread easily.  (And I never have the foresight to bring butter to room temperature before the time comes to spread it.)

Olive Oil Butter

Ultimately, these are silly problems.  But they inspired me to create this Olive Oil Butter with Basil and Garlic.

This spread is a 50/50 combination of olive oil and butter.  The butter helps solidify the olive oil, while the olive oil keeps the butter from getting too solid.  

Olive Oil Butter Steps

The first step is to melt the butter.  Next, whisk the olive oil, sea salt, minced garlic, and basil into the hot butter, infusing it with even more flavor.  The mixture is then placed in the freezer for a half hour. 

The resulting olive oil butter spreads perfectly over warm bread.  It even spreads easily on room temperature bread, although in this case, I do prefer to keep the spread on the counter for 3 minutes before using.

Make Olive Oil Butter

The next time you crave the classic combination of bread and olive oil, or bread and butter, try my Olive Oil Butter with Basil and Garlic. Enjoy lots of flavor without hassle!

How to Chiffonade

You can mince the basil, but I prefer to chiffonade the basil, or “make ribbons.”  Take a look at the photos above and below for my basil chiffonade method.

One Thing

Make spreading the olive oil butter even easier with an offset spatula.  You can find my favorite offset spatula set on Amazon [aff. link], or in my Amazon store here.

5 from 4 votes

Olive Oil Butter with Basil and Garlic

This Olive Oil Butter with Basil and Garlic is perfectly spreadable and full of flavor.

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Freeze Time30 minutes mins

Total Time40 minutes mins

Servings: 0.75 cup

Print Recipe

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Ingredients

• 2 ½ Tbsp basil, chiffonade (see photos above for how to chiffonade basil)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup butter
• ¼ tsp sea salt

Instructions

Microwave the butter

• Microwave the butter until it's almost completely melted, about 30-40 seconds.

Add the seasonings and olive oil

• Now add the sea salt, garlic, basil, and olive oil. Whisk with a fork until combined.
• Let the mixture sit for 3 minutes to allow the basil and garlic to infuse the butter and oil with flavor.

Freeze the olive oil butter

• Place the mixture in the freezer for 30 minutes.
• Remove the olive oil butter from the freezer. It will be set. Now run a fork through the olive oil butter until it’s no longer smooth. The mixture will feel like softened butter and be easily spreadable, but not liquid-y.

Serve and enjoy

• Use immediately, or cover and store the olive oil butter in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Notes

The olive oil butter will spread easily over hot or warm bread.

Straight from the refrigerator, the olive oil butter will spread easily on room temperature bread, but I still prefer to give it about 3 minutes on the countertop before spreading.