Steak Gets The Ultimate Glow-Up With One Sweet And Buttery Move

Conventional wisdom says butter always makes steak better, and even more when you explore how far you can take it. You can, for instance, build your own compound butter for steak and infuse the beef with herbs, spices, or fruit. If you're more interested in simplicity, however, there's a single-ingredient butter that's as much of a game-changer as it is surprising: corn butter. Used as a topping, the dairy-free butter adds creaminess with a hint of sweetness to your steak, giving it an almost summery quality.

Corn butter is made by extracting all the juice out of corn with a food processor, and then heating it until the starch thickens the liquid to a butter-like consistency. It has all the sweetness and earthiness of corn, but also has a remarkable level of richness despite not having the same fat content as regular butter. This also means that it doesn't melt like dairy butter does, so you'll want to spread it out over your steak instead of just letting a pat sit on top of it.

When you flavor a steak with corn butter, it contrasts with the salt and umami of the meat, brightening up its flavor profile without overpowering any of its beefiness. A sprinkle of pepper and a few herbs tossed on top of the butter further enhances the complexity, bringing heat and botanical notes to the dish. The result is a steak that's been upgraded with a ton of nuance and loads of flavor.

You can also tweak your corn butter to give your steak an even bigger upgrade. A pinch of salt, for example, goes a long way towards making the butter a little sharper, which goes great with fattier cuts of steak. You can also blend in some dairy butter to boost its richness while also helping it melt more evenly over your steak.

If you're adding dairy butter to your corn butter, you might also want to try mixing in some miso paste. Miso, butter, and corn are already a popular combination; the umami of the miso blends beautifully with the sweetness of the corn, and the creaminess of the butter grounds the sharper flavors of both so that everything harmonizes on the palate. Bringing those flavors to your steak in the form of a single compound makes every bite of beef just sing in your mouth.

For a deeper corn flavor, you can roast or grill the corn before blitzing it in your food processor. This adds a smokiness to the flavor profile of your corn butter, which makes it pair perfectly with the char on your steak. You'll need to use a bit more corn to get the same amount of butter, however, since roasting it will naturally lead to some moisture loss. You can also try some of Bobby Flay's hacks for perfectly grilled corn on the cob to prevent some of that loss.