The Store-Bought Butter Brand That's Highly Overrated, Overpriced, And Way Too Salty

When you're hitting up the dairy aisle to choose which type of butter you're going to toss into your cart, you've got a ton of options. Whether you're going to create a compound butter to easily flavor corn on the cob, you're one of the people who swear by drinking coffee with butter, or you're simply looking for something great to slather on your bagel in the morning, it can be tough to figure out which one is the right pick. We tested and ranked a ton of salted butter to sample the field, and we were surprised to find that a company well known for its high-quality cheese — Cabot Creamery — produced the butter that came in second-to-last on our definitive ranking of grocery store butter brands. The only variety it managed to beat out was Walmart's Great Value sweet cream salted butter.

We found Cabot's version to be so over-the-top salty that it was tough to taste the natural sweetness typically present in butter. Depending on where you buy it, it might be a little more reasonably priced (it's $4.93 for 16 ounces at Walmart in Pennsylvania, for instance), but it was still expensive compared to several better butter brands we tried, especially in light of its flavor. We tested each butter on the list by simply slathering it on a slice of warm bread, and somehow, Cabot's saltiness managed to make the snack taste like straight-up saline solution.

If you already have Cabot butter in your fridge at home and you're not exactly loving the salt level, you're not alone — and you've got some options to ensure that it doesn't go to waste. One way to put your too-salty butter to good use is to mix it with another type of butter to make a compound butter. Mix Cabot and another type of room-temperature butter together (go for an unsalted variety to balance out the salt factor), and mix in herbs, lemon zest, garlic, or whatever else suits your fancy. 

You can also use Cabot salted butter in baking recipes that call for unsalted butter plus the addition of salt. Simply reduce the amount of salt in the recipe, as there's plenty (like, seriously, plenty) of salt in your butter. Generally, you'll want to take away about ¼ teaspoon of salt for every half cup of butter in your recipe. 

Of course, it's best to just buy great butter in the first place. Kerrygold salted butter was, without a doubt, our top pick. Plugra salted butter was a high-quality, totally acceptable alternative. Both of these options are perfect for elevating dishes they're added to, without a slap-in-the-face salty taste like Cabot.