If you’ve been on the hunt for a way to take nearly any savory meal to the next level, your search is over! This easy lemon butter sauce is an elegant, smooth sauce you’ll want to pair with all of your proteins, pasta, veggies, and anything else you can find!
Made with butter, heavy cream, lemon, and a few other flavorful additions, this sauce is irresistibly fragrant and has the most luxurious texture. You’ll want to keep it on hand so you can regularly take simple meals to the next level.
What is Lemon Butter Sauce?
Lemon butter sauce is a basic sauce that’s similar to a beurre blanc or lemon caper sauce but without wine or capers. It comes together in a jiffy and is truly one of the most multipurpose sauces there is! In fact, my son will tell you it belongs on everything from pasta to hot dogs.
While I might not personally slather my dog with it, I will swap it for butter in many savory recipes.
Why You’ll Love Lemon Butter Sauce
There’s a lot to love about this lemony sauce!
- Creamy. Many lemon butter sauces are just a combination of lemon juice, seasoning, and butter. While those are delicious, too, this sauce has a bit more going on — the heavy cream helps to make it incredibly rich and silky smooth.
- So many uses. This sauce is perfect for seafood from snow crab legs, halibut, trout, and tilapia to scallops, prawns, and other shellfish. It’s also delicious drizzled onto meat and veggies or used for dipping with warm, crusty bread. And don’t sleep on tossing any sort of pasta in it — it’s fantastic with all noodle sizes and works well with stuffed pasta like ravioli, too.
- It’s a breeze to whip up. In just a couple of steps and a few minutes, you can have this sauce ready to serve.
Ingredients
Just a handful of ingredients is all you need to make this luscious sauce.
- Unsalted Butter – The base of the sauce, butter makes it rich, creamy, and full of buttery flavor.
- Fresh Lemon Juice and Zest – Lemon lends its bright and tangy taste to the sauce. The acidity and freshness beautifully balance the richness of the butter.
- Garlic – With its pleasantly pungent and aromatic flavor, fresh garlic complements the other flavors in the sauce.
- Coarse Kosher Salt – Salt is the key to bringing out the other flavors in the sauce.
- Ground White Pepper – White pepper adds subtle heat but also blends in beautifully with the pale color of the butter and cream.
- Heavy Cream – Cream makes the sauce rich and velvety.
- Flat Parsley – While optional, I love to add parsley because it adds a pop of color and herbaceous flavor.
What To Serve Lemon Butter Sauce With
This rich lemon butter sauce can brighten up so many dishes! Try it on seafood like salmon, lobster, cod, or shrimp, or use it to make a more elevated version of buttered noodles.
It’s also perfect for tossing with roasted vegetables, asparagus, cauliflower, and broccoli or as a dipping sauce for nearly any type of bread. You can also drizzle it over meats like chicken, steak, or pork.
How to Make Lemon Butter Sauce
It’s beyond easy to make this simple yet flavorful sauce.
- Melt butter. Add the butter to a small saucepan and melt completely before adding the zest, garlic, salt, and pepper.
- Allow to simmer. Allow the butter mixture to simmer briefly before removing the pan from the heat.
- Add remaining ingredients. Stir in the remaining ingredients and serve.
Note: This sauce will have little white floaters –these are the milk solids and it is completely normal for them to not 100% emulsify. To eliminate them, either whisk again or reheat. Using clarified butter and no cream will prevent this from happening, but will not impact the flavor- it tastes better with both, anyway. You’re welcome!
Variations
We love this simple lemon butter sauce just the way it is, but you can jazz it up, too.
- Spices – Try adding crushed red pepper flakes or cayenne pepper powder for a spicy kick. You can also use blends like Thai or Cajun seasoning.
- Herbs – Add fresh herbs like thyme, tarragon, dill, or basil or a dried herb blend like herbes de Provence.
- Aromatics – Incorporate onion, chives, or leeks or increase the amount of garlic.
- Citrus – add the juice or zest of an orange, lime, or lemon.
- Wine – Add some acidity with a bit of dry white wine.
- Cheese – Sprinkle in some parmesan cheese for a nutty cheese sauce.
Storage and Freezing
It’s easy to store this simple sauce and add it to any dishes you want to dress up whenever you want.
Since the sauce stores well, you can make it ahead of time and use it when you need it.
How to Store Lemon Butter Sauce
Place the leftover sauce in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to one week.
Can I Freeze Lemon Butter Sauce?
Store any leftover sauce in an airtight container or a silicone ice cube tray for up to three months.
Common Questions About Lemon Butter Sauce
If you finish the sauce and realize that the lemon is overpowering, you can balance it out by adding a bit more melted butter or cream.
The best way to increase the thickness of a sauce is to use a slurry. Mix either cornstarch or flour with water and add it slowly to the sauce until it is the consistency you are looking for. Never mix the cornstarch or flour in directly — it will form lumps.
Lemon butter sauce may separate if you have the temperature turned up too high. Make sure to keep the temperature on a lower setting to avoid separation.
More Savory Sauces
There’s no meal that a good homemade sauce can’t elevate. Here are some of our favorites.
Creamy Chipotle Sauce
Teriyaki Sauce Recipe
Boiling Crab Sauce
Lemon Butter Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1 fresh lemon zest and juice, divided
- 1 clove garlic grated
- 1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream
- 2 teaspoon flat parsley chopped, optional
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Add the lemon zest, garlic, salt and pepper. Simmer for 3-4 minutes.
- Take the sauce off the heat and whisk in the lemon juice, heavy cream and parsley, if using.
- Use immediately or set aside and reheat when ready to use.
- If you’ve tried this recipe, come back and let us know how it was in the comments or star ratings.
Notes
Nutrition
Oh yum! Such a wonderful easy and versatile sauce. It sounds perfect for pairing with pasta.
Served this over pasta last night and the whole family loved it! Such a flavorful sauce. Delish!
This Lemon butter sauce look amazingly delicious. Thanks for sharing.
I love how quick and easy this is to make! Thank you so much for sharing!
This was really good on chicken and asparagus. I’ll definitely be making it again soon!