Lemon Butter Sauce: Homemade Lemon Butter Sauce Recipe
Written by MasterClass
Last updated: Nov 24, 2024 • 2 min read
Make a naturally gluten-free lemon butter sauce to enhance weeknight dinners. Read on to find an easy recipe, and discover uses for this zesty sauce.
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What Is Lemon Butter Sauce?
Lemon butter sauce is a tart and savory sauce made from lemon juice, butter, onions or shallots, garlic, and white wine. You cook the sauce on the stove to emulsify the butter and lemon juice to create a cohesive mixture. You can add the sauce to many dishes, such as roasted vegetables, couscous, or Italian pasta primavera.
3 Ways to Use Lemon Butter Sauce
You can add lemon butter sauce to many dishes from various cuisines.
- 1. Drizzle lemon butter sauce over chicken. Sauté, grill, or roast chicken breasts and top the chicken with lemon butter sauce. The lemon butter sauce adds zest to the mild-flavored protein. For grilled chicken, enhance the charred flavor by grilling the lemon halves before squeezing the juice into the sauce.
- 2. Serve lemon butter sauce with vegetables. Brussels sprouts, artichokes, green beans, and potatoes are earthy vegetables that benefit from the bright lemon flavor of lemon butter sauce. Toss the vegetables in the sauce and serve them as a side dish with chicken, scallops, or fish fillets.
- 3. Toss pasta in lemon butter sauce. In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook pasta such as angel hair, fettuccini, or linguine until the noodles are al dente. For a restaurant-quality pasta dish, finish cooking the pasta in the lemon butter sauce with a little bit of the starchy pasta water. Add grilled chicken or roasted vegetables to the lemon butter pasta for a hearty main dish, and garnish with grated Parmesan cheese, fresh parsley, capers, and red pepper flakes.
Lemon Butter Sauce Recipe
makes
About ¾ cupprep time
10 mintotal time
35 mincook time
25 minIngredients
- 1
In a medium saucepan over medium heat on the stove, heat the olive oil.
- 2
Add the minced garlic and shallot.
- 3
Sauté the garlic and shallots for about 5 minutes.
- 4
Pour in the white wine, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan.
- 5
Increase the heat to medium-high and cook the wine for about 5 minutes, or until it reduces by half.
- 6
Add the chicken broth and cook it for about 7 minutes, or until it reduces by half.
- 7
Add the lemon juice and lemon zest.
- 8
Turn the heat down to low heat.
- 9
Add the butter, one cube at a time, while whisking constantly.
- 10
After fully incorporating all of the butter, add the salt and pepper.
- 11
Use immediately or store in the refrigerator.
- 12
To reheat the lemon butter sauce, place it in a small saucepan over low heat and melt butter into the sauce, constantly whisking until it is hot and cohesive.
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