The 2 Ingredients To Make Garlic Bread Even More Comforting

Garlic bread is already a pretty comforting food. It's the side dish that really takes center stage as far as enjoyment goes when accompanying pasta and vegetable dishes, regardless of whether it comes from a bag at the grocery store or an Italian restaurant's kitchen. But there's an easy, two-ingredient upgrade for this beloved food for those times when you need to double down on comfort: Add brown butter and sage.

The typical ingredients that adorn garlic bread are unsalted butter and grated, smashed, minced, or otherwise prepared garlic. Salt, herbs, and cheese also sometimes factor in.

There are a few reasons why sage and brown butter add a cozy boon to classic preparations. Sage is an herb with a taste somewhere between woody, citrusy, and minty. It is often incorporated into sausages and other hearty, meat-based dishes, giving it a subconsciously comforting association for many. Brown butter, known in French as beurre noisette, is butter that's been cooked extra long until the milk solids within have had time to toast and turn brown, imparting a richer, nuttier flavor than regular butter. A drizzle of brown butter and a sprinkle of sage, therefore, go a long way in enhancing the cozy factor of garlic bread.

First things first, you're probably going to want to know how to execute brown butter. This sophisticated treatment is luckily a very easy skill to master. Take a look at this guide on how to make brown butter to get your start. You can also learn a little bit about sage and its history before selecting what kind to arm your pantry with. While you could use ground sage, most recipes call for fresh, chopped sage for a less potent flavor. Following our classic garlic bread recipe, you can simply swap out the regular butter for brown butter and incorporate the sage into the butter and garlic before it's spread on the bread.

You can also wield this hack on other dishes that involve garlic bread-esque components. Try making this cast iron skillet bruschetta recipe, but topping the slices with a few drops of your brown butter and a pinch of sage. Or try your hand at this broccoli, cheddar, and roasted garlic panini recipe; drizzling brown butter and adding a bit of sage will play up the garlic bread undercurrent here and crank the dial on the comfort factor significantly.