How to make desi ghee from butter: melt, simmer and strain

Melt, simmer, strain. Cut the butter into cubes so it melts evenly, melt it in a heavy pan over a low-medium flame and then leave it alone: it will boil as the water inside it steams off, throw up a white foam, quieten down, and then the milk solids that settle at the bottom will brown while the fat above turns clear. Strain the clear fat off the browned solids into a clean, dry jar. Unsalted butter is the easiest to judge, and salted works too.

1. Cut the butter. Cold butter melts unevenly, so cut the block into cubes about the size of a small spoon. For a first batch, 500 g of unsalted butter is easy to watch.
2. Melt on low. Use a heavy-bottomed pan, which spreads the heat, and a low-medium flame. Too hot from the start and the solids will burn before the water is out.
3. Boil off the water. The melted butter first comes to a frothy, spitting boil. This stage is the water inside the butter leaving as steam, and it can take ten minutes or more; the splutter calms as the water runs out.
4. Watch the foam fall. A thick white foam rises over the surface. Do not skim it; it settles on its own as the simmer deepens, and the fat underneath begins to look clearer.
5. Brown the solids. The milk solids sink to the bottom and turn from pale to golden-brown, and the pan smells nutty and toasted rather than milky. The fat above turns transparent gold. This is the done window.
6. Strain and cool. Off the flame, pour the ghee through muslin or a fine steel sieve into a dry jar, leaving the browned solids behind. Let it cool uncovered before you close the lid, then keep it by the rules on how to store ghee.

Three cues line up at the same moment. Colour: the fat above the solids turns from cloudy yellow to transparent gold, and the solids below turn golden-brown. Sound: the noisy water-boil gives way to a quiet, even simmer, with fine bubbles rather than big ones. Smell: the milky steam becomes a nutty, toasted aroma. If the solids are still pale and the fat still milky, the water is not fully gone; if the solids are black and the pan smokes, the batch is over. Both mistakes change the taste and the keeping time, so watch the window rather than the clock.

Unsalted butter is the standard choice: nothing else concentrates in the pan, and the stages are easy to read. Salted butter works too, but the salt does not boil off, so taste the finished ghee before you cook with it. White butter (makkhan), the soft butter churned at home or sold fresh, makes ghee the same way; because it holds more water than a firm yellow block, its boiling stage runs longer. Whatever the butter, the finish line is the same: clear golden fat over golden-brown solids. And because the milk solids are strained away, the finished ghee is generally lactose-free, just as COWBERRY notes for its A2 ghee.

• Flame too high. The water boils off faster than you can react, and the solids scorch. Ghee made over a scorch tastes burnt, and the taste cannot be fixed.
• Stopping early. Ghee strained while still milky holds leftover water. It may spoil sooner and looks dull instead of clear.
• Skimming too eagerly. The foam is not dirt. Leave it, or skim gently at the very end if it has not settled.
• Straining into a wet jar. Every drop of water in the jar works against the ghee later. The jar must be dry, and the spoon that serves it too.
• Throwing away the browned solids. They are the cook's share: stir them into hot rice or dal with a pinch of salt. As a cooked leftover, eat them within two days or freeze them.

For 500 g of butter on a low-medium flame, the whole job is about 25 to 30 minutes; a larger batch mostly stretches the water-boiling stage.

The numbers that follow the jar: a teaspoon of ghee is 45 kcal and a tablespoon 135 kcal, and ICMR-NIN advises limiting ghee or butter to 1 to 2 teaspoons a day, or avoiding them if possible. What to cook first: ghee rusk uses the jar in baking, and the bilona ghee guide covers how ghee is made from curd, plus its nutrition and uses.

What is A2 ghee?

A2 ghee means ghee made from A2 milk, and A2 is a label for the milk's beta-casein: the A1 and A2 versions differ at a single point in the protein, and early studies found only the A2 version in Indian native cows. Home-made ghee from butter is not A2 unless the butter came from A2 milk, because the label is about the milk, not the method.

Can we use ghee instead of butter?

Yes, in almost every kitchen use: roti, toast, tadka, dal, rice and baking all take ghee where butter stood. Because ghee is almost all fat, with no water to cook off, start with a little less than the butter you would have used. The full swap guide, with the quantities, is on can we use ghee instead of butter.

Is ghee healthy?

Ghee is nearly all fat: 900 kcal and 100 g of fat per 100 g. ICMR-NIN advises limiting ghee or butter to 1 to 2 teaspoons a day, or avoiding them if possible, because saturated fats are known to raise total and LDL cholesterol. The question is the amount; anyone managing cholesterol or heart disease should ask their doctor or dietitian.

Is ghee better than oil?

The two are different fats, not better and worse. Ghee is 900 kcal per 100 g; the ghee vs oil page sets it beside oils, and in both cases the spoon counts as much as the swap. Both work for frying and tadka. The side-by-side numbers are on the ghee vs oil page.

Does ghee from salted butter taste salty?

It can. The salt does not boil off with the water, so some may stay with the ghee. That is why unsalted butter is the standard choice for making ghee, and why the stages are easier to read. If salted butter is what you have, taste the finished ghee before using it and adjust the salt in the dish rather than salting twice.