Introducing easy vegan brown butter! If you’ve ever eaten anything made with real brown butter, you’ll know the delicious nutty flavour that it imparts.

Truly addictive, brown butter elevates both sweet and savoury recipes, from chocolate chip cookies to brown butter chocolate syrup and brown butter pasta sauce. But what to do if you don’t eat dairy?

To make traditional brown butter, you simply heat the butter in a saucepan. Over about 15 minutes, it goes through a number of stages from cooking off the water in the butter to the point where the butter is foaming and the milk solids in the butter start to brown. These milk solids are what produce that coveted nutty, hazelnut-like flavour.

If you attempt to brown margarine, such as Earth Balance or Becel (aka Promise in the US), yes, it does brown. But the result decidedly does not have the same flavour appeal. Margarines, of course, vary in how they’re formulated, but if it’s vegan margarine, it will not contain any milk solids, and therefore it lacks that nutty flavour of browned butter.

So how to get that nutty flavour? The images provide a big clue -  by infusing margarine with pecans, you get that nutty flavour, and voila, easy vegan brown butter.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use hazelnuts?

You can try using hazelnuts for this recipe if you like. The dairy version of brown butter is also called beurre noisette or hazelnut butter, due to its hazelnut-like flavour. That makes hazelnuts an obvious choice, but the small problem is that I'm allergic to hazelnuts, so I could not do my due diligence with testing. Also, pecans, at least in my part of the world (Vancouver, Canada) are easier to find and less expensive. Finally, skinless hazelnuts are a bit difficult to find, but if you can find them, consider giving the recipe a try with them. Remember to keep an eye on how quickly they are browning and remove from the margarine before they start to go from brown to burnt. 

Can you use any kind of margarine for this? Does Earth Balance butter brown?

Different margarines have different formulations, so I cannot guarantee that they will all work the same way. I choose Becel vegan margarine to test this recipe. This is not a sponsored post, but I choose the brand because according to Wikipedia, it’s available in many countries worldwide. Note that in the United States the brand is called Promise. Make sure you are buying the vegan/plant-based version as there are several varieties. 

I've also tested to see whether Earth Balance butter browns. It does brown, and compared to Becel, less of the margarine is ‘lost’ in the browning process, which I believe is indicative of the water content – i.e., it looks like Becel (aka Promise) has a higher water content.

Can you use Miyoko's cultured vegan butter?

Yes, we have tested Miyoko's vegan butter with this recipe. On Miyoko's packaging, it advises that their butter "melts, browns, and spreads phenomenally." We compared Mikoyo browned butter on its own, versus browned with pecans, and we think the pecans added a layer of nuttiness to the plain version. 

Note that browning their butter - with or without the pecans - results in the butter turning into a light-brownish-gray colour.

Can I use this vegan brown butter in baking?

The short answer is, it depends. At room temperature, it's a semi-liquid oil not solid butter. Therefore, it will probably be fine in any recipe that calls for liquid oil or melted butter. Even if the recipe calls for butter sometimes you can get away with substituting oil, but you would usually replace it with less oil -- about 75% of the original quantity. For example, you would replace 1 cup of butter with 3/4s of a cup of oil.

If you want to make some cookies, try our awesome Vegan Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. 

I don’t think this vegan brown butter will work in recipes where you need butter in its solid state, such as in recipes for making puff pastry.

Vegan brown butter does not turn solid at room temperature.

The image is grainy, but you can see how the vegan brown butter is a pourable, semi-liquid oil.

What about using vegan brown butter in savoury dishes?

Again, it depends on how the brown butter relates to the overall recipe. However, you can definitely use it add a nice nutty depth of flavour to sauces. It would be perfect for a simple vegan brown butter pasta sauce with some sage.

What can I do with the leftover pecans?

Eat them! They’re buttery and delicious. I love them on my morning oatmeal or with fruit and yogurt. You can also add them to baking, such as the Vegan Brown Butter Chocolate Chip cookies mentioned above.  Or try this  Dark Chocolate Bark recipe with buttery pecans and salty smoked almonds.

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