10 minute brown butter sauce for pasta
An easy and quick 10 minute sage butter. A delicious foamy and nutty browned butter with crispy sage leaves for an addictive pasta sauce.
Servings: 4 people
Ingredients
- 150 g butter cubed (see notes)
- 20 sage leaves see notes
- Salt to taste if using unsalted butter
Instructions
- Make sure you check out my notes and photos above, it's all useful info I promise. There is a handy video below too.
- Melt the butter in a frypan over medium heat and when it just starts to sizzle, throw your sage leaves in.
- Continue cooking the butter, swirling the pan so it cooks evenly.
- The butter will create big bubbles and crackle quite loudly. Feel free to turn the heat down if you think it is cooking too quickly.
- The bubbles and noise will subside and then it will start to foam on the top.
- Keep swirling the pan so you can see what is going on under the foam. It will take about 5 minutes.
- We are looking for the specks on the bottom to be brown NOT black. Keep in mind it will continue to cook when you take it off the heat.
- As soon as you see the specks at the bottom turn brown, take it off the heat and serve immediately.
- I like to gently spoon the butter over the pasta and then skim the foam off the top of the pan to layer onto the pasta too. It's all about those foamy bubbles!
Video
Notes
Butter - Use salted or unsalted. I personally use salted but you obviously have more control over the seasoning with unsalted.
Sage - Sage crisps the best in brown butter and isn't really substitutable in my opinion. You could put sprigs of rosemary or thyme in purely for flavor and discard before serving.
Pan choice - Use a light colored pan so you can see the milk solids browning and avoid burning.
Don’t add pasta to the pan - Plate the pasta first, then spoon the brown butter on top so the sage stays crispy.
Optional add-ins - Lemon zest or toasted walnuts/pine nuts are delicious finishes.