Scrumptious Avocado Butter

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Compound butters—that is, butter mixed with other flavorful ingredients—are easy to make, taste terrific, and can be used in all sorts of ways. Plus, they are a source of healthy fats—indispensable for a keto dieter. In fact, this scrumptious, super-quick-and-easy compound butter contains two excellent fat sources: butter and avocado. Think of it as an instant flavor- and fat booster!

Tips for making the Scrumptious Avocado Butter

This delicious condiment is ready in a mere minute. Slather it on steak, serve it alongside cooked veggies, or use it as spread or sandwich filling (my favorite!).

However, to guarantee absolute success here, it’s good to remember a couple of things.

The most important point is, Be sure to use butter that’s soft enough. If your butter isn’t soft, you will end up with a lumpy result, full of tiny chunks of butter. And that’s just not palatable. So be sure that your butter is really soft.

That said, in case you do end up with the lumpy result described above, don’t panic: Heat the mixture in the microwave oven for a few seconds, then mix, and voilà, the lumps will have disappeared!

I prefer my avocado butter slightly chunky, so mashing with a fork produces the best result. However, for a really velvety texture, you can use a blender to blend all ingredients until smooth.

So, let’s take a look at how to prepare this amazing avocado compound butter:

Take one medium to large Hass avocado. Be sure it’s soft and ripe. Halve it…

…and remove the pit. Scoop the flesh into a large, shallow bowl.

Add the softened butter…

…freshly squeezed lemon juice…

…seasoning…

…and some salt.

Mash with a fork…

…until…

…you reach the desired consistency.

Here, I use the avocado butter to make tiny sandwiches for finger food — just like I did for my book launch party (read more about it below!) — so I just slather an ample amount of avocado butter on the bread I made (the recipe is in my Finnish book, but it’s based on this bread recipe. I’ve used hemp protein in addition to whey protein, which is why it looks a bit dark).

After slathering a thick enough layer of avocado butter on the bread…

…I just place another large slice of bread on top and press down lightly.

Here we go.

Now I place the sandwich in the fridge until the filling is completely set. It takes a couple of hours. Then I slice the larger sandwich…

…into tiny ones — simple, perfect finger food that tastes amazing!

Yum!

 

My Scrumptious Avocado Butter experiments

This recipe is based on the Avocado Butter recipe (“Avokadovoi”) in my Finnish book “Parantava ketoosi — Terveeksi sokerittomalla ja gluteenittomalla ruokavaliolla”. The second edition of the book is out (finally!) long after the first edition sold out. Even more exciting, the new edition is on the top 10 bestseller list here in Finland.

The day before yesterday, I had a book launch party in Helsinki where I served various keto treats to the guests, including keto sandwiches filled with tasty avocado compound butter. Both recipes (the bread and the avocado butter) are in my Finnish book, the one I was promoting.

People liked the treats so much that I decided I’d really have to post a recipe here on my blog. I thought the avocado butter recipe would be just perfect: it’s delicious, versatile, and practically foolproof.

Well, I actually ended up modifying the original recipe a little, as I wanted to see if I could improve it even further. I remembered conducting several experiments when I created the avocado butter recipe approximately five years ago, and now I was curious to see if I could make it even better—and if my taste preferences had changed over time.

Hmm. The original recipe contained two tablespoons of lemon juice. Looking at it now, I thought that would be too much, so I decided to use just one tablespoon. Also, the original recipe called for 1 teaspoon of “Herbs of Italy” seasoning mix plus 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (I wonder if I had really used that much!).

I decided to replace that herby Italian seasoning with something else and to leave out the black pepper, too. I took a look at the contents of my pantry and grabbed all the seasonings I thought might go well with the avocado butter. I wanted the result to be a bit spicy but not too hot and fiery.

First, I made a plain version of the avocado butter, using 1 ripe Hass avocado, 3 oz (85 g) softened salted butter, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, and 1/4 teaspoon Himalayan salt.

Then I divided the plain avocado butter into smaller portions. I mixed each seasoning into one of these portions. Finally, I took a large plate and placed small mounds of each test version on it. Here’s what my “test platter” looked like:

And, here are my ratings for the different seasonings, as well as the plain version: the notes below describe how well each seasoning went with the avocado butter (where ***** = incredible, and * = inedible):

• Plain (good and basic, but would benefit from more flavor): ***
• Sumac (pretty tasteless: couldn’t really taste the sumac): **½
• Lemon pepper (tasty, but slightly too bitter and pungent): **+
• Curry powder (curry was just too weird with avocado butter): **
• Barbecue seasoning (at first, I thought this was the best of the bunch, but on reflection there was something missing from the taste): ****
• Chipotle (there was lots of kick, but the taste experience felt “thin” and too bitter): **
• Garam masala (tasted almost like a dessert! But in a totally weird way…): *½
• Crushed red pepper (there was absolutely nothing there—a slightly fiery kick, but that was it—plus the red pepper flakes were nastily chewy): **-
• Pizza seasoning (not bad, nicely herby, but something missing taste-wise): ***
• Cajun seasoning (full of flavor and a gentle kick; definitely the winner!) *****

As you can see, I didn’t like most of the combinations (even the plain version earned three stars!). However, two seasonings stood out from the crowd: barbecue seasoning and especially Cajun seasoning, which got the full five stars! (Well, to be honest, that’s nothing new: this tasty meatball recipe also combines Cajun seasoning with avocado.)

Feel free to conduct your own seasoning experiments and let me know which one is your favorite!

And, finally, here’s the recipe:

 

 


 

Nutrition Information	In total	Per tablespoon
Protein	3.7 g	0.3 g
Fat	88.5 g	6.8 g
Net carbs	1.9 g	0.1 g
kcal	818 kcal	63 kcal

 

Tips for variation

Like I said, my original version, which appears in the Finnish book, contained lots of freshly ground black pepper, which I didn’t include in my more recent experiments. But it’s worth trying: black pepper works wonderfully here.

I didn’t try this out, but I bet crushed garlic would be a wonderful addition to this avocado butter. Just think of guacamole, which often contains garlic! Plus, garlic and butter is a match made in heaven, so there’s no reason not to give it a try.

When I took the photos, I used fresh thyme as a prop. And when I tried it in a sandwich, I was surprised to find that it lent a really elegant note. So, if you want to use fresh herbs, thyme would be a fabulous choice. (Actually, I might still make a version with crushed garlic and chopped fresh thyme!)

Here are some photos of the keto treats I offered at the book launch party: