Butter is one of life’s simplest pleasures. Without it, effortless dishes from omelettes to beans on toast are pale imitations of what they could be. Vilified for decades for being a ‘bad fat’, public health advice suggested swapping it for margarines as butter is higher in saturated fats (which increases cholesterol). But now butter is thought to be fine, as long as it’s part of a balanced way of eating.
Now butter is firmly back in our shopping baskets and fridges, appreciated for the excellent creation that it is. Waitrose has reported a 16 per cent increase in sales of its essentials salted butter compared to last year, and flavoured butters have soared in pop…
Butter is one of life’s simplest pleasures. Without it, effortless dishes from omelettes to beans on toast are pale imitations of what they could be. Vilified for decades for being a ‘bad fat’, public health advice suggested swapping it for margarines as butter is higher in saturated fats (which increases cholesterol). But now butter is thought to be fine, as long as it’s part of a balanced way of eating.
Now butter is firmly back in our shopping baskets and fridges, appreciated for the excellent creation that it is. Waitrose has reported a 16 per cent increase in sales of its essentials salted butter compared to last year, and flavoured butters have soared in popularity, with Worldpanel trend forecasting reporting sales have risen by 24 per cent in the UK in a year.
And, like the queen of cooking, Nigella Lawson loves to do, it’s best slathered on toast. I’d always opt for salted butter for toast. But Nigella has her own way of doing it – she uses unsalted butter, and has two ‘layers’, ensuring the second leaves un-melted blobs of butter on the slice. The final step is to sprinkle sea salt flakes on top. So, if salted butter is good enough for Nigella (albeit a more deconstructed approach), it’s good enough for us. (For a quicker and simpler approach, I’ve only tested salted butter here.)
Like many essential ingredients, the cost of butter has risen around 19 per cent in the past year alone, so as it’s something that you’re always going to be buying, it’s worth knowing which brands are worth their salt. It’s now unlikely to get a pack of butter (excluding the spreadable types that come in tubs) for less than £2, where most give only a few pence change from £3.
From basic own brands to the more luxurious among them, these are the butters from supermarkets that are worth adding to your basket.
The best supermarket butters for 2026 are:
- **Best overall **– Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference West Country farmhouse butter: Sainsburys.co.uk
- Best cheap supermarket butter – M&S British salted butter: Ocado.com
- Best creamy supermarket butter – Kerrygold pure Irish salted butter: Asda.com
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How I tested
I got busy slathering the dairy spread on multiseed bread (Emma Henderson/The Independent)
I tested 16 salted butters, first by slathering a decent amount on toast, and then tasting them on their own over a couple of days. I used the same bread (my favourite non-sourdough loaf, the Sainsbury’s multiseeded loaf) throughout the test.
I tested supermarket’s basic own-brand butter, where it was available (as not all supermarkets do it), the more luxurious own-brand butters and well-known brands available at supermarkets. I considered taste and creaminess, texture, and value – but I’ve detailed my full testing methodology at the end of the review. You can trust that these butters are worth adding to your weekly shop.
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