Garlic Lemon Butter Sauce (in 5 Minutes)
This is a super simple garlic lemon butter sauce for fish, pasta, chicken, or even roasted veggies, helping you make restaurant-quality dishes like lemon butter salmon at home!
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Servings: 0.5 cup
Ingredients
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice ~1/2 large lemon
- 1 clove fresh garlic, minced alt. 2 teaspoons jarred minced garlic
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper to taste
- optional 1/4 cup heavy cream for a thicker sauce use 1 tablespoon less butter
Instructions
- Prepare your fresh lemon juice and mince the garlic (or use 2 teaspoons of the stuff from the fridge; we won't tell) before you get started cooking. Then put a heavy-bottom pan over medium heat, and cut the butter into a few pieces and add it all to the pan.
- Once it's melted, lower the heat to low and add the garlic. Let it cook for about 1-2 minutes, until the garlic pieces are just starting to brown.
- Then turn off the heat and move the pan to a cool burner. If using heavy cream, add that to the mixture now and stir it until fully incorporated and the sauce is all the same temperature. Slowly stir in the lemon juice, salt, and pepper (and then slowly drizzle in the cream, if using), then your sauce is ready to use. This is the perfect lemon butter sauce for pasta, chicken, or fish; we even drizzle it on top of asparagus and steamed broccoli.
Notes
Prevent Curdling: when making lemon butter sauce with cream, it's a good rule of thumb to add the cream first and let it reduce and thicken slightly before adding the lemon juice, helping to prevent the cream from curdling.
Batching: one batch of this recipe makes about a half cup of sauce, which is perfect for two servings of fish or chicken, or four servings of very rich roasted vegetables.
Lemon Juice: do NOT use bottled lemon juice in lemon butter sauce; it has added preservatives and flavorings that make it fine for lemonade but totally imbalanced when making a sauce like this.