One of the really fun aspects of food blogging is the opportunity to review products for my readers. I’m featuring a Chef Shamy Gourmet Butter Product Review on The Goldilocks Kitchen today! Just so you know, this is not a paid advertisement :0) but I am really lovin‘ these gourmet flavored butters! Chef Shamy Gourmet butters come in several different sweet honey butter flavors and savory sauté butters. They use all natural ingredients; good ol’ fashioned butter, honey, spices, herbs and cheese. They save you the time of creating your own compound butters at home. I’ve had the opportunity to taste seven different flavors, and I must say, they are quite amazing! Here’s why:

Show above: Chef Shamy Gourmet Vanilla Honey Butter. See the specs of vanilla beans? This stuff is the real deal.

Pros:

These butters are a delicious high quality addition to any meal featuring real, all natural ingredients. So if you prefer to eat real food, these butters are for you. Zero imitation stuff here. If you are a pro chef, these butters are for you. If you’re not a pro chef, but want your food to taste like it’s made by a pro chef, this butter is for you. The honey butters are soft, even out of the fridge, and can be used for much more than slathering on a piece of homemade bread. How about using IN the homemade bread (which I will be doing in the future), whipping up some buttercream frosting, or stir up a batch of Honey butter rice krispie treats! Lots of other fab recipes are available on their website too.

These butters taste homemade, but save you the time of creating them at home. They are sold in several major retailers including Walmart, Sam’s Club and Costco.  My whole family loves these butters! I baked up a couple loaves of homemade Farmhouse Wheat Bread over the weekend and we’ve been eating bread and Chef Shamy honey butter like crazy! My favorite was the Passionfruit Honey Butter, but the Vanilla, and Cinnamon Brown sugar flavors were a close second. I used up a whole 7.5 oz tub of Garlic Parmesan Butter with Basil on our sunday family dinner. I spread it on slices of french bread and used the rest in twice baked potatoes. We also had steaks that night topped with a dollop of French Onion Butter with Asiago Cheese. Ah-maz-ing! I even sauteed veggies with the Southwestern Sauté butter to accompany our meal.

Sauteing up some veggies in Chef Shamy Gourmet Southwestern Saute Butter for a side dish.

Today I grilled some cheese sandwiches using the different saute butters, to further investigate their distinct flavors. I was really missing the Garlic Parmesan Basil butter (since I used it all up on Sunday) but my second favorite of the saute butters would have to be the French Onion with Asiago Cheese. The Lemon and Dill wasn’t bad either, I’m sure it’s fabulous on fish. I personally was a bit disappointed with the Southwest Sauté Butter. It was a bit heavy on the lime and cumin, and lacking a strong chili flavor. But I’m from New Mexico where strong chile is next to water in sustenance, just so you know :0) The rest of my family thought it was great. Maybe they made it that way on purpose so you can add as much hot chili flavor as you like.

Mmmm, lovin’ that beautiful color on my grilled cheese. Remember, Color = flavor :0)

Cons:

As I roamed around the internet checking out other reviews of Chef Shamy Gourmet Butter, I was surprised to see some folks couldn’t always find the butter stocked at their local grocer and were very disappointed. Thankfully, you can order it right from their website. Even better, they have a store locator on their site so you can find the closest retailer selling Chef Shamy butter!

Speaking of purchasing, real butter does generally cost more than margarine. Just one of those facts of life :0) Personally, we use both at my house. I have a stash of unsalted butter in the fridge that I use regularly for all my baking. We use margarine for everything else, like toast or macaroni and cheese (which I’m not above feeding to my kids, don’t judge). We are tightwads around here at the moment; trying to pay off debt, but I personally feel that our family budget could easily work in some fabulous Chef Shamy butter each month.

Final opinion:

I feel that using these butters in my cooking is absolutely worth the cost of the product. I love the quality, versatility and pure ingredients found in Chef Shamy Gourmet Butters, and I will be using them on a regular basis in the future. I do hope this review was helpful in making your decision to purchase/not purchase Chef Shamy Gourmet Butters :0)