Smoked Honey Butter

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Smoked honey meets butter to create an incredibly elegant and delicious Smoked Honey Butter spread for rolls, toast, sandwiches, and so much more. 

A bowl of smoked honey butter

Smoked Honey Butter Highlights

  • Can easily be prepared in advance for a dinner party or crowd
  • Perfect for breakfast, lunch, or dinner over toas
  • If you don’t have a smoker hot honey is a great alternative
  • If looking for creative ideas with butter check out our recipes for compound butter.

Because we like to experiment with everything on our smoker we had the idea to smoke honey, just to see what would happen. The combination of sweet and smoky is a favorite of ours so we thought why the heck not. We serve this for almost every catering event we do.

Inspired by sweet compound butters we decided to combine the smoked honey with butter to see how well the two combine as a spread.

Can you smoke honey? The answer yes. Simply smoke it at a low temperature and let it soak in the flavor.

This is really a great way to impress your friends with something they would never expect. They see a simple butter dish on the table, and go to dig in… but wait… “What is that?” they’ll ask? It’s so good!

Then you can wow them by telling them you made smoked honey butter. They don’t need to know how easy it is.

How to Make Smoked Honey Butter

We use roughly equal parts butter and honey, so however much smoked honey butter you wish to make will determine how much honey you will begin with. For this example we used a 12 oz jar of honey for two sticks of butter (8 ounces). It yields about one pound of honey butter.

Preparing Honey to Smoke on the Smoker
Local honey is a great option.

Smoking the Honey

They key is preventing the honey from boiling. So keep the temperature of the smoker under 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Fruit woods are a great option for a sweeter and softer flavor.

  1. Preheat smoker to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, with a fruit wood like cherry.
  2. Pour the honey in a glass dish.
  3. Smoke for 2 hours.
  4. Let the honey cool.

It’s important to note that you want to keep the temperature LOW, otherwise you run the risk of overheating (or caramelizing) the honey. We’ve done that, and while the results are still fine, you’ll end up with butter that is darker, caramelized, and more intense in flavor. (Let’s be honest, we burned it.) So keep it under 200 degrees.

How to smoke honey on the smoker
The color will darken as the smoking occurs.

It’s important to let the honey come back to room temperature because when you mix it with the butter you don’t want to melt the butter, or specifically have the heat separate the solids and liquids of the butter. You want to keep everything at room temp.

Mixing the Smoked Honey with Butter

Once the honey is ready place it in your mixer with 2 sticks (1 cup) of room temperature softened butter (no salt added). Then mix until combined and the consistency is similar to a frosting. It will be slightly thick and whipped, but will have a nice consistency to it. This is where you can add salt if you wish. Just a touch goes a long way to bring out the flavors.

How to Make Smoked Honey Butter by whipping smoked honey with butter in a stand mixer
Use a strong mixer to get a frosting like consistency.

Then place in your serving dishes and let them sit. At this point you can cover them and place in the fridge, or serve immediately. Right before eating, add a touch of finishing salt to the top of the dish.

Smoked honey butter for parties
Top off with a little finishing salt.

Alternatively you can mold the butter into a roll, much like the store-bought sticks, and store in your fridge for several weeks. Or freeze for up to six months. Just slice off pieces as you need it.

  1. Lay out a large plastic wrap and place butter in center of wrap.
  2. Fold the plastic wrap over butter, and using hands start to form into a long roll.
  3. Once you have your desired roll, finish closing off the plastic by covering and sealing the butter.
  4. Store the butter in fridge or freezer.

This is awesome to serve at dinner parties with baguette slices or rolls (try it for Thanksgiving). But it’s also just as tasty on your breakfast toast.

Smoked Honey Butter Spread on bread
Perfect with bread

Recipe Ideas for Smoked Honey Butter

This recipe was originally written in September of 2016 and updated in October of 2020. It includes new recipe pairings, guided recipe details, and steps for smoking honey.


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4.60 from 5 votes

Smoked Honey Butter Recipe

Smoked honey meets butter to create an incredibly elegant and delicious butter spread for rolls, toast, fruit, and so much more.
Prep: 5 minutes
Cook: 2 hours
Total: 2 hours 5 minutes
Servings: 1 pound

Equipment

  • Heavy Mixing Stand

Ingredients 

  • 1 12-ounce jar of local honey
  • 2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • finishing salt

Instructions 

  • Pre-heat your smoker to 200 degrees using cherry wood (or other fruit wood).
  • Place the honey in a glass dish and place on the smoker. Let cook on the smoker for 2 hours, being careful that the temperature does not go above 200 degrees.
  • Remove and let come back down to room temperature.
  • Place the smoked honey in a mixer then add the room temperature butter. Mix on low speed until the butter and honey are whipped and combined together.
  • Place in your favorite serving dish and dust with some Maldon salt.

Notes

Note: Roll up the unused butter using plastic wrap in a log. Store longer term in the freezer. This will keep for several weeks in the fridge.
Serving ideas:
  • Serve with bread rolls at dinner.
  • Add to a cheese and charcuterie board.
  • As topping to baked potato.

Nutrition

Serving: 1tablespoon | Calories: 3258kcal | Carbohydrates: 1g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 368g | Saturated Fat: 233g | Cholesterol: 976mg | Sodium: 50mg | Potassium: 109mg | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 11345IU | Calcium: 109mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Additional Info

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 2 hours
Total Time: 2 hours 5 minutes
Course: Appetizer, Main Course
Cuisine: bbq, butter, dips, smoked, spreads
Servings: 1 pound
Calories: 3258
Keyword: smoked butter
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Vindulge

About Mary


I'm Mary, a wine/food/travel writer, Certified Sommelier, mom of twins, former vegetarian turned BBQ fanatic, runner, founder of Vindulge, and author of Fire + Wine cookbook. Thanks for stopping by!

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