Butter - Salted vs Unsalted

This is another one of those that isn't clear to me, that is, when to use salted vs. unsalted butter.

So many recipes call for unsalted butter, but the recipe has salt -- so what gives?

Can anyone clear this mystery up for me? I usually just use whatever I have.

You can always add salt later if needed. It can be a bigger problem if you only have salted and the recipe calls for unsalted.
I know some people who buy salted butter for table use, unsalted for cooking.

unsalted. You never know quite how much salt is in that butter, so it's impossible to gauge it in a recipe.

I always get the unsalted.

of slightly rancid butter. We buy unsalted for cooking, baking, and table use.

to stop using it! Seems unsalted is the way to go!

Thanks for the replies!

Two people in my household prefer salted butter at the table. Three strongly prefer unsalted butter at the table. And so it's a constant fuss. Because I am the primary cook and shopper, I buy both. For table use, we put out one or the other, and the "unsalties" complain at times.

I don't always follow the rule of unsalted butter for baking, because I have many old cookbooks that I KNOW have assumed that salted butter is being used in the recipes. If I am baking something from a magazine or cookbook that's just a few years old, I would use unsalted.

And I think the old chestnut about butter being rancid is probably invalid these days. People salted their homemade butter to preserve it. But with universal refrigeration, that's probably unnecessary these days.

Another point of choice in our home is kosher or table. We use both.

I never worry about salted for cooking. I usually taste when I cook and adjust things at the end. Sparkly usually does, too. She and I have nearly identical 'salt taste' so we only very rarely add salt at the table.

The kids ..... not so much.

The unsalted butter is pretty tasteless, IMO, when spread on bread or crackers. Of course, in all cooking applications, the unsalted butter gives you better control over the salt content of a recipe.

i like the little bit of salty buttery crispness with my sweet. to me, that's one of the best things about homemade cookies.

Unsalted butter goes bad if you look at it cross-eyed, so in my experience, I only use unsalted when I know I'm shopping and baking on the same day or if I have the ability to freeze the butter to hold.

For table and generic use, I soften a pound of salted and a pound of unsalted, then mix them together in the mixer to make demi-sel (half-salt butter). I learned to love the stuff in Europe, where that's the standard. I pull half of it out and use an ice cream scoop to make 1 TB pats (I got a really small one for this and cookies and other things where I want very precise portioning) and freeze those. Then I can use what I need easily. The rest gets whipped so that it has some air and that light, lovely fluffy texture.

Both as stated.

1) Quality. Salt improves stablity of the butter. Poor quality butter has to be salted to stay stable. Unsalted butter is a better quality and doesn't require salting to stay stable. So, just from the fact that it's a better quality butter, and doesn't cost a heck of a lot more, you should use it if you're looking for better quality.

2) Saltiness. If you want to control the saltiness of your end product, you might as well have as much control over content as possible. With salted butter, you don't know how much is in there, and if you don't want that much, you can't really get it out. With unsalted, you're in full control.

but for actual cooking I prefer unsalted.

Unsalted butter if left unrefrigerated will spoil in about a week. So unless a person routinely leaves butter out of the fridge for that length of time, I guess the potential for spoilage is not a factor in the choice.