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How to make homemade ghee on the stovetop quickly and easily for a healthy cooking fat that is shelf stable and nourishing.
Knowing how to make ghee is simply a must for any Traditional Cook. Clarified butter as it is also known, has been used for thousands of years by Indian cultures. In fact, traces of ghee have been found on fragments of Indian pottery dating as far back as 6500 BC!
When in a liquid state and made from unheated butter, ghee is called butter oil. Dr. Weston A. Price discovered that butter oil and cod liver oil work synergistically to supercharge absorption of Vitamins A, D, and K2 known as the X-factor.
Dr. Price always carried flasks of cod liver oil and butter oil to the bedside of very ill patients. More often than not, he was able to revive them with a few drops of each under the tongue. Using cod liver oil or butter oil separately did not have the same deathbed reviving effects.
Benefits of Ghee over Other Cooking Fats
It is best to know how to make clarified butter oil or ghee yourself rather than buying from the store. Notice the picture above of a jar that I made myself with pastured butter from a local farm. It is so yellow!
Commercial ghee from the store is a pale yellow, indicating lower nutritional value from cows eating grain mix instead of fresh green grass.
Ghee from the store is also ridiculously expensive, so learning to make it yourself is not only a more nutritious way to go, it is very cost-effective.
I make clarified butter oil for about half the cost of what it would be to buy it at the health food store.
Unlike butter, ghee does not need refrigeration and keeps well on the counter or pantry for many months. Keeping a jar in the pantry for a quick veggie saute is very convenient!
Another benefit of ghee is that it is easier to digest as all the milk solids (proteins) have been removed from the butter. Very frequently, even those with a true dairy allergy find that ghee presents no trouble for them.
Another advantage to using clarified butter instead of plain grass-fed butter is that the grassy taste and sometimes cheesy smell of the butter is eliminated.
Therefore, by learning to make clarified butter oil from grass-fed butter, you will find that you now have a healthy fat for cooking that does not displease your family with a cheesy odor. This can sometimes happen with grass-fed butter alone.
Homemade Grass-Fed Ghee
The recipe and video lesson below covers how to make this healthy and indispensable fat for use in your own kitchen.
I also cover how to make clarified butter capsules. This is a convenient way to take butter oil with your daily dose of cod liver oil.
If you are spending money on high vitamin cod liver oil (this is the brand I’ve used since 2015) it is a must to be taking it with clarified butter oil. This supercharges the beneficial effects!
Note that it is not advisable to make ghee from homemade raw butter. The heating process causes a loss of the enzyme and probiotics in this special food.
Prefer to Buy?
If after reviewing the recipe and video demo below you decide to buy instead, I would recommend this vetted source as a premier retailer of quality grass-fed ghee. Plain, cultured, and herb-flavored varieties are all available including a coconut oil/ghee blend.
How to Make Ghee
This simple recipe for making ghee can be accomplished on the stovetop in just a few minutes.
Ingredients
- 1 lb butter preferably grassfed and organic
- 1 wide mouthed mason jar quart size
- 1 cheesecloth fine mesh
- 1 funnel
Instructions
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Place pound of butter in a medium sized pot or stove safe glass bowl. Turn heat on low and allow the butter to gently liquefy.
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Turn heat to medium-low and gently remove foam that comes to the top of the melted butter with a slotted spoon.
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After removing the foam, allow the melted butter to simmer on medium-low heat for 5-10 minutes longer to allow all the milk solids to settle out on the bottom of the bowl. You will know when the separation process is complete as the solids will be slightly brown on the bottom and the clarified butter will be completely clear and transparent.
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Line a funnel placed into the open end of a wide mouthed mason jar with a fine mesh cheesecloth.
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Pour the clarified butter into the funnel so that it is strained through the cheesecloth as it enters the mason jar.
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Allow the finished ghee to cool in the mason jar. When room temperature, fasten the lid on tightly and store in the pantry as a convenient and incredibly healthy cooking oil for all your kitchen needs.
I want to thank you for the recipe for homemade baby formula! It’s been a life saver for my little girl! I was unable to breastfeed and I didn’t want to give her soy based store formula but until I found your video and recipe, that’s what we were giving her. She was sick and in constant pain from the soy formula for the first month of her life. The first week of feeding her your recipe for formula, she was a totally different baby! She is now almost 6 months old and hasn’t been sick a day since she started your formula! I can’t thank you enough for your videos!
I work as a quality assurance lab tech at a margarine plant. Most of you know margarine is like butter, but with water or aqueous solution substituted instead of milk. With real butter, milk is used. Either way, real butter should be 80% oil and 20% milk. In my profession, we use soybean oil as the base. I’m not sure what oil is used in organic Butter, but aren’t you just rendering the milk fats off, evaporating the serum and getting at the base oil. If you are what is the base oil? I’m think just taking a teaspoon of soybean oil should be the same thing. Help me with my question, because I know I’m thinking about this incorrectly.
I was wondering if the homemade ghee could be used for the butter oil in the homemade baby formula recipe
So I know I’m commenting on a super old post, but thank you so very much for writing this post up. It has finally “dawned” on me by reading this post and one from the Nourishing Gourmet that ghee is butter oil! I’ve researched high vitamin butter oil vitamins and it is just too expensive for us to purchase. But ghee, well that’s completely do-able! 🙂 I really want to provide my family with the best nutrients possible and in the right combinations, so thank you for providing so much info to us.
Quick question, how much/dosage do you recommend that childrens and adults take per day?
I love using ghee. I just tried to make a batch and did not pay as close attention as I should have. The butter oil turned brown. Most sites say to ditch it once it turns brown but It smells absolutely WONDERFUL! What is your advice?
Is there any benefit to making this with cultured butter over regular? I know the enzymes and bacteria will be killed by the heat, but I’m still curious if through the fermentation process any vitamin levels are increased.
Thanks Becky Lee! I’ve been checking back every day hoping for an answer!
We use 3/4 t of fclo and 1/2 t hvbo every day. saw improvement in about 4-6 weeks.