Easy Homemade Grass-Fed Butter Using a Mason Jar

I did not think shaking a jar would actually work but it DID! Ten minutes and I had real butter!!

I have a stand mixer sitting right there and shaking a jar for ten minutes feels like the long way around. Would the paddle on medium separate the buttermilk the same way, or does the jar actually do something different?

Annie, your note on why the cream needs to be room temperature first finally got me to try this. Shook mine about seven minutes. Watched it go through this thick, almost whipped stage before the liquid separated. Didn’t expect that in a mason jar, honestly. Does water temperature matter for the kneading step, or is it just about rinsing until it runs clear?

My arm is sore and I have zero regrets!!

First batch came out great. Making this every week.

Has anyone tried this with regular heavy cream? I can’t find grass-fed anywhere near me but I really want to make this.

I cannot believe this worked the first time!! We are never buying butter again.

Does the buttermilk actually freeze?

I make whipped cream in my KitchenAid all the time, so I keep eyeing the whisk attachment while I’m supposed to be shaking the jar. Would that work here, or does the shaking motion do something a mixer can’t? I’m assuming you’d still need the cream at room temp first and the water kneading step after.

Gave my daughter the jar to shake. She’s hired.

The water goes white the first time you knead it, then cloudy, then almost clear, and I stood there pressing butter in a bowl thinking this is the weirdest and most satisfying thing I’ve done in a kitchen in a long time. My daughter watched without saying anything until I transferred it to parchment and then said ‘it looks like Play-Doh,’ which, yes, exactly. I skipped the salt the first time just to taste what the cream became on its own, and the smell alone told me something was different. Kind of grassy and a little sweet in a way the Kerrygold from the fridge never quite manages. We put it on toast still warm from the toaster and she finished hers in about four bites, which is fast for her with anything I make from scratch. Already have cream sitting out for the next batch.

That thud when the butter forms. Sold.

Had butter go rancid inside a week twice before I figured it out: not enough water changes during the kneading. Fresh cold water until it runs completely clear. Keeps two to three weeks in the fridge, no problem.

Somewhere around batch six I switched from regular salt to fleur de sel during the kneading step and the butter hasn’t been the same since (in the best way). The crystals don’t fully dissolve and you get these little pockets of salt with every spread. Four stars only because ten minutes of shaking is apparently my arm’s limit.

Tried folding in fresh chives and a pinch of smoked sea salt right at the kneading stage and it worked better than I expected. I was half braced for the herbs to get watery or slide out, but the cold water bath actually helped everything bind in. Spread it on a warm piece of cloud bread and it looked like something from a fancy cheese shop. I’ve been buying herb compound butter for years and I genuinely don’t think I need to anymore.

Third batch this month and I genuinely stopped buying butter at the store. The shaking felt like a workout the first time. Now I kind of look forward to it.

Added roasted garlic while kneading and now I put this on literally everything. The shaking goes so much faster when your cream is fully room temp (mine was borderline cold once and I shook for 15 minutes and almost gave up). Fully worth the extra warmup time.

If I double it to a quart, does it still take 5-10 minutes or does more cream mean longer shaking?

Added a pinch of garlic powder before shaking. Best butter I’ve ever tasted.

Switched from the mason jar shake to a food processor about a month ago and I’ll probably never go back. The cream breaks in under 2 minutes, and the separation is clean enough that you barely need to strain. I still do the water kneading by hand since that step actually matters for pulling out residual buttermilk, which affects how long it keeps. The one thing I changed on the seasoning side was adding fleur de sel at the very end rather than mixing it in during the knead. It gives the finished butter these small concentrated bursts of salt instead of it being evenly distributed throughout. For anyone planning to use this as a base for compound butters with herbs or garlic, that little salt hit plays really well against the fresh flavors.