How to make organic ghee

Organic butter to ghee

Why use ghee?

Ghee has a higher burning point and a higher smoke point than standard clarified butter and oils, which means it is ideal for frying or sautéing foods. The smoke point of a fat, is the temperature at which they become volatile and begin to smoke causing the fat structure to breakdown and possibly produce potentially carcinogenic toxins.  The jury is still out on this one.  Therefore, promoting healthy cooking at home – ghee is the fat of choice in our home.

Is ghee dairy-free?

Technically, ghee is not dairy-free because it’s butterfat. However, it’s lactose-free because all of the milk solids are completely removed during making. Ghee is again a healthy fat of choice if you are intolerant to lactose, or if you have been on a specific diet and are wanting to gently re-introduce dairy, this is a great start.

This is such a simple and quick recipe, you’ll be wondering why you haven’t been using homemade organic ghee before now.

1. Place one, or two, packets of organic ‘no salt’ butter (local produce if you can) in a large shallow pan.
2. Medium heat, and do so gently for about 20 minutes.  Allow the butter to melt, then bubble, then ‘pop’ and ‘click’ until you have a creamy white foamy residue on the surface of the fat.  This is the milk solids – this is what we want to completely remove before we finish the heating process.
3. So be patient, when no more milk solids form it is time to turn the heat off.  If the fat begins to blacken you have used a heat which was too high and/or heated the fat for too long.
4. Allow the fat to cool for a further 20 minutes.
5. Cover a pyrex jar with cheese cloth/muslin, sufficiently secure the cloth to ensure the fat does not spill when pouring fat from pan in to the jar.
6. Discard the cloth with the milk solids contained – BE CAREFUL NOT TO SCOULD YOURSELF.
7. Allow fat to cool in the jar and then refrigerate.

Ghee can be stored, unopened, in a cool, dark, not-necessarily-refrigerated place for 9 months. Once opened, a jar can be kept on your counter top for 3 months. Beyond that, the open jar can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 1 year.