Salted butter
Salted sweet-cream cow's butter · Dairy
Top 10 pairings
Salted butter is ordinary sweet-cream butter with a small amount of salt worked evenly through it — usually about 1.5–2% by weight — which makes it the everyday table and spreading butter of most Anglo-American kitchens. The salt seasons the fat, blunts any stray off-notes and slows spoilage, giving a fuller, more savoury flavour and a longer shelf life than the same butter left unsalted; it is the default block in the fridge door rather than the baker's choice.
Picking a good onedrag
Sweet, clean cream, kept tightly wrappedCheesy-sour or stale, or spotted with mould
Open and in useEveryday bestPregnant? The NHS says pasteurised butter is fine; avoid unpasteurised. Rewrap tight.
Wrapper and where it satRewrapped tight, back in the cold
Smell once unwrappedMilky and mild, but quieter
These cues are Butter's, and hold across its varieties; where this one differs, its own page says so.