How to make ghee

Ghee is a type of clarified butter that originated in India and is widely used in South Asian cuisine. It has a rich, nutty flavour and a high smoke point, making it ideal for frying, baking, and sautéing. Making ghee at home is simple and rewarding, and you only need one ingredient! Let me show you how to make ghee yourself.

Jump to:

• What is ghee used for
• What you will need
• What to do
• Tips for making ghee
• Variations
• Storage
• FAQ
• Save for later
• Related
• 📋The recipe

What is ghee used for

Ghee is a pantry staple in most South Asian households, and for good reason. The delicious nutty almost caramel-like taste adds an extra dimension of flavour to dishes that you would typically cook with butter.

You can use ghee in a variety of ways:

• Use it as a substitute for butter in recipes for pancakes, pastries and cookies. You will find it makes the pastry extra crispy. Do take care when using it as a substitute for butter when making cakes. Because there is no liquid content in ghee as there is in butter your cakes may turn out drier than normal.
• Because it has a high smoke point, ghee is ideal for frying vegetables, meat, seafood or fritters.
• You can pour a little melted ghee over steamed or roasted vegetables to add a nutty, buttery flavour.
• Use it in place of butter, when making sauces.
• Or simply spread it on toast!

And did you know that you can make your own butter and then turn it into ghee?

In its liquid form, ghee has the texture of oil, but as it cools and solidifies the texture turns to that of soft butter.

Let me show you how easy ghee is to make.

What you will need

Equipment

You will need a saucepan and something to strain the ghee through, such as a piece of muslin, a fine sieve or even a coffee filter.

Ingredients

Not too many ingredients are needed for this recipe. In fact, there is only 1. Can you guess what it is?

That's right - it's simply plain unsalted butter.

Ghee is made by removing the milk solids and water from normal butter. Butter contains approximately 20% water, so you will lose 20% of whatever quantity of butter you choose to use. A 250-gram block of butter will yield approximately 200 grams of ghee. If you prefer to calculate it in ounces, you will lose approximately 1.5 ounces for every 8 ounces of butter.

You can make as much ghee as you like in one batch. However, it may take longer for all the water to evaporate from the butter.

There are no substitutions for this recipe. You MUST use real butter - butter substitute spreads and/or margarine will not work!

What to do

In a nutshell, this is what you have to do:

• Heat the butter gently until it melts.
• Leave the butter to simmer for 20 to 25 minutes to allow any water in the butter to evaporate and the milk solids to separate and turn slightly brown.
• Cool and strain the melted butter into a container.

And here are the details:

Tips for making ghee

Here are some tips you may find useful:

• When melting the butter keep the heat to very low. You want the milk solids to separate from the fat, but not burn.
• Do let the butter simmer for at least 20 minutes to ensure all the water has evaporated.
• You will hear a crackling noise as the ghee is cooking. This is the water content sizzling as it evaporates. Once the crackling sound stops you will know the ghee is ready. My 225-gram pack of butter took just over 20 minutes to get to this stage. If your butter has a higher water content it may take slightly longer.
• You can strain the butter either through a metal sieve lined with paper towel, use a piece of muslin or cheesecloth or even pour it through a coffee filter (although a coffee filter will take longer to strain).

Variations

I prefer to leave my ghee plain, which means I can use it in whatever dishes I choose. However, you could alter the flavour by adding the following (depending on what you are going to be using it for). Any additions will be removed when the butter is strained, leaving just their flavour behind.

• Hot - add chilli pepper flakes or a finely chopped chilli to the butter so that the ghee can pick up the heat.
• Herby - add your choice of chopped herbs such as rosemary, thyme or basil (great if you are going to be drizzling melted ghee onto a pizza!
• Spicy - add your choice of spices such as cardamon, cumin or coriander seeds.
• Fruity - if you intend to use the ghee for making pastry or a fruity sauce, you could add citrus zest or honey with the butter.

Storage

Because all the milk solids have been removed, the ghee can be stored in your pantry without going rancid. I prefer to store mine in the refrigerator, where it will stay usable for up to a year.

FAQ

Save for later

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Related

For these and other handy ideas, why not browse through my how-to guides?

📋The recipe

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