If You're Making Homemade Garlic Bread, Skip The Melted Butter
Bread, garlic, and butter. When you combine these ingredients before baking or grilling them, you get delicious garlic bread. The buttery, garlicky infused flavors on that soft, yet crunchy bread make for a scrumptious side dish. If you're following your own garlic bread recipe, of course you're free to make it in whatever way you'd like. However, if you're thinking of pouring melted butter over the bread just before you cook it, it's important to know that you might be better off with an alternative method.
If you try to drizzle melted butter over your bread, you'll have a hard time evenly distributing the butter on the bread. You may even create a mess while trying to precisely pour melted butter over your bread. But there's a cleaner, more effective alternative – softened butter. You can easily distribute softened butter all over the bread without making a mess, ensuring that melted buttery goodness is in every crevice of your bread once it cooks. You could also skip the butter altogether and still cook some delicious garlic bread.
Use these ingredients in your garlic bread recipe instead of melted butter
You can achieve great-tasting garlic bread by using any of the many melted butter substitutes – one of which is olive oil. Just before cooking the bread, coat it with a little olive oil so that your garlic bread comes out moist and tender. You can also swap the melted butter for a great Italian cheese such as the piquant Pecorino or the fruity and zesty Taleggio, and sprinkle it on your garlic bread before roasting so it melts deliciously.
If you'd like a comparable taste to butter in your garlic bread, opt for margarine. Unlike butter, margarine doesn't contain any animal fats and it's made from plant-based oils. You can also replace your melted butter by spreading a light layer of mayonnaise on your garlic bread, which will impart a tart and tangy flavor. Experiment even further with your favorite ingredients and infuse them in your garlic bread, such as taking a cue from Guy Fieri and adding hot sauce to your recipe. After you've spurned the melted butter for softened butter or incorporated other ingredients, cook up a complementary Italian dish that you can enjoy with your garlic bread.
Eat your garlic bread with these Italian dishes
When choosing what Italian dishes to whip up for the best meals to pair with garlic bread, opt for one with a prominent flavor that complements the garlicky kick of the bread. You won't be disappointed if you make some creamy chicken alfredo. The creaminess of the parmesan alfredo sauce will be an ideal pairing with your sharp-tasting garlic bread. Italian braised beef ragu with parmesan polenta is another terrific match for garlic bread, as the savory polenta brings a nice contrast.
Savory sauces and soups pair excellently with garlic bread as well. Dunk your garlic bread in some buffalo chicken dip to mix spice with creaminess in one harmoniously delicious bite. Slurp some potato soup for a creamy taste and follow it up with a bite of your spicy garlic bread. No matter which dish you choose for your garlic bread, it's going to taste delicious with or without butter.