With only 3 ingredients and 5 minutes to make, this Garlic Butter Sauce can’t be beat. It’s the perfect garlic sauce for pizza and breadsticks!
Pizza Dipping Sauce
What is your favorite part about ordering pizza? The obvious answers would be the ease of no cooking and little clean up, and being able to “indulge” in something cheesy and delicious.
But one of my favorite parts of ordering pizza are the breadsticks and pizza crust. More specifically, dipping said breadsticks into garlic butter sauce!
Inside scoop: Most pizza garlic butter sauces don’t use fresh garlic.
Okay, it’s the garlic dipping sauce I crave. I want ALL the garlic pizza sauce.
I like it so much, in fact, that I came up with my own recipe. You are going to love how quick and easy it is. For being such a simple sauce, it really adds so much extra flavor.
Besides dipping, you could even brush this sauce on top of rolls before they go into the oven for an extra garlic kick or even drizzle on vegetables. With only 3 ingredients and 5 minutes to make, it’s an easy way to add flavor!
PRO TIP: Feel free to use fresh garlic cloves. Minced garlic will give you the most punch, while sliced garlic the least. You can also flavor your sauce with salt and pepper or a dash or two of hot sauce.
What Butter To Use
This sauce is one of those times when the quality of butter is important. This garlic sauce is such a simple recipe, that choosing quality ingredients is very important and not all butters are created equal.
While it is fine to just throw a stick of butter in the pan, consider using cultured or European butter for a tangy, robust flavor. You can also use clarified butter, butter with milk solids and water removed.
Wondering why yours is slightly “off” from Papa John’s or Domino? Probably because they use margarine instead of real butter. This is, in part, why their sauces don’t solidify like a real butter sauce will.
Some companies even supplement their butter sauces with vegetable oil or olive oil. To me, that is just greasy, so I stick with the basics.
Butter Grades
Butter is required to have an 80% butterfat, but cheaper butters might also have more water.
American butter typically doesn’t have as much flavor either. Grades, ranging from the best grade AA to grade B, are based on flavor, body, color and salt and water content.
For just bread and butter, or something where the dish is butter-forward with uncooked butter, splurge for the AA grade. If you plan to mix it, clarify it or use it minimally, opt for a lower grade. I keep 3 types of butter in my house.
The good stuff for bread, toast and bagels. It is typically already salted. A middle grade for basic cooking, also usually salted. And unsalted middle grade for baking.
PRO TIP: This isn’t just for pizza. Serve Garlic Butter Sauce with all sorts of seafood! Fish, shrimp, crab and more. I like to add a dash of lemon juice, lemon zest or hot sauce when I serve it with seafood and fish.
Garlic Powder
The second trick is using garlic POWDER, not granulated garlic. Powder will absorb into the butter without being grainy.
Taylor says: “I love this stuff! It is the BEST for pizza!”
Lastly, the sauce tastes best if it sits for a while to allow the flavors to marinate. Chances are the dipping sauce you got from the restaurant had a days… if not weeks to sit. It is one of the reasons they use margarine, it is much more stable and lasts longer!
So the next time you’re craving the garlic sauce from your favorite local pizza place, just take a few minutes to make your own. Your taste buds will thank you! Pizza also tastes great with homemade buffalo sauce or even ranch dressing.
You can also get super fancy and use my Truffle Butter or compound butter as the base!
Storage & Freezing
You can store it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, but remember it will solidify so you’ll need to remelt it.
Can I freeze Garlic Butter Sauce? You can freeze butter, but you want to make sure it is a high quality butter with little to no additional water. You’ll see they are graded on the packaging. Clarified butter freezes better than straight butter with milk solids.
Some folks like to pour slightly cooked butter into ice cube trays, pop them out and then freeze them in airtight plastic bag. I like the silicone ones, they are easier to pop the cubes out.
Butter Stains… Yes I Just Went There
How do I remove butter sauce from clothes? We’ve all been there. A butter stain. Why it is so hard to get out???? For me, it is a job hazard. I get a lot of butter on my clothes and some stains are more difficult to get out than others. So there is what I do.
Rinse the stain immediately. Try to get out as much as you can before the stain really starts to set.
Pretreat! Spray the stain with a a stain remover. Let is sit and marinate for a little while. Wash in the highest heat possible.
Sometimes it takes more than one wash. To be totally transparent, some won’t come out at all. But give it your best try!
Fabulous homemade pizza recipes :
Tools for making Garlic Butter Sauce:
Heavy Bottom Sauce Pan– this will be one of your most used kitchen tools. Having something that is heavy bottom will distribute heat better and prevent burning whether you are using an electric or gas range.
Ramekins– I like giving folks their own individual sauce cups. Then you don’t have to worry about double dipping! Ramekins are also great for ingredient preparation and baking mini soufflés.
Whisks– I buy whisks in multiple sizes. You never know which one you will need
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Garlic Butter Sauce
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter*
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- Dash fine sea salt
Instructions
- Combine butter, garlic powder and fine sea salt in a small sauce pan.
- Stir and heat until melted. Serve.
- If you’ve tried this recipe, please come back and leave us a note!
Love this, I spilled my garlic butter sauce when I order pizza. I looked up the recipe on the internet and found this. I can now make this and put it on my vegetables and pizza. 🙂
Yay! Glad it was so helpful!
This recipe has totally sparked a craving for pizza with a delicious garlicky butter sauce. I love garlic sauce or ranch with a delicious deep pan. I love to dip the crisp crust in it, yum!
So good! You would think that dipping sauce has some secret ingredient but its just butter and garlic powder! The perfect pizza dip!
Ooh I love garlic! This is such a great idea for pizza. I’d put this sauce on everything!
Garlic Butter sauce! This recipe just makes me smile with joy. What could be better – garlic and butter to coat anything you want. This would be perfect poured over steamed veggies! YUM!
Oh yum! I can use this sauce for so many things. Good tip about sing good grade butter. I’ve never really thought about that before as the water content would just make it less flavoursome. So trying this on the weekend!
Great and easy recipe. Thank you. Also butter stains are easy to remove, just pretreat with regular Dawn dish soap before you wash. They always come out!!!!
Glad you loved it and thanks for the tip 🙂
Yes
Oh, The sauce looks wonderful. I will definitely b e trying this! My question has always been how to get it like Domininoes with the smooth thickened texture?? How do they thicken it and stay liquid? Any ideas??
Thank you!!
They use margarine instead of real butter- it is more shelf stable since it uses vegetable oil. The type they use has a low water content so it is thicker, like oil, instead of watery or like milk.:)
The recipe sounds doable and even easy but the length of time to actually get to the recipe is agonizing!!!!!
Hi Charlotte- there is a “jump to recipe” button right at the top!
Worked great to go with pizza!
Thank you, Britnee!!!
Thanks for the recipe!
Just figured I would point this out to you, but there’s typo at the end of the recipe. The first sentence of notes.
The same thing happens to me after posting an article, sometimes I don’t notice for months.
Notes
*If you have the time, try use clarified butter instead of just a stick. It will give you the bright golden tone. Un-clarified butter might look a little more cloudy, but will taste the same.
Thanks, Earl.
There are so many great ways to use this simple sauce! Adds flavor to so many dishes.
Cannot wait to try this. By the way…to get greasy stains out of clothing, including butter, try Carbona stain remover for butter and oil. Has saved many a shirt for me. This even works on old stains.
Good tip, thanks!
This garlic sauce is so easy to make. I used it on my breakfast pizza, and it was so good!
Is it best to use salted or unsalted butter? Will it be too salty if I use salted butter and the sea salt?
This is totally dependant on the brand of butter you use and your personal salt tolerance. When in doubt, use unsalted and then add salt until your desired flavored. If you use salted butter, taste it first and then add salt sparingly until it tastes right to you. I like mine salty…. so…
So simple and delicious. Fascinating reading about the types of butter available in the US. I’m in the UK and we are limited to salted or unsalted. Now, if you could also tell me why I always spill grease on a brand new top that would be perfect LOL.
This tastes just like the sauce from Papa John’s! I loved it.
Oh my gosh, this this Garlic Butter Sauce is amazing! I make it for dipping garlic knots – so good!
Thanks! We love it too!!!
Helpful hint regarding getting butter stains; you are correct about hitting the stain immediately with water, I usually use cold. One sure way to get butter out of clothing is to use Dawn dishwashing soap. As the commercial says, “Dawn gets grease out of your way.”
So far, it hasn’t failed me.
Good to know, Glenda! Thank you!
Love it!!!
Been searching a long time for my pizza garlic butter ty!
Yay! That is what we love to hear!
I love this stuff! It is the BEST dip for pizza. Yum!
Oh, I am so drooling right now! This garlic butter looks amazing and I think I’d hog it all to myself too if it were in front of me! I’m thinking this weekend calls for some bread sticks and this awesome sauce.
Delicious
Awesome! Thank you, Amy!