You Should Butter Your Bread Before Toasting, But There's A Catch

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Buttered toast is a breakfast staple. It's simple and easy, and it goes with other breakfast food quite nicely. According to Toast Masters, the practice of toasting bread became popular in the 17th century and has never fallen out of favor. Buttered toast is fine with a banana and pairs well with bacon and eggs. In many ways, it's the simplest way to get carbs into your body in the early morning hours. When you look at the components, though, it can be so much more than that. A nice type of bread is one of the finest food items in the world, and butter can elevate just about any dish. So, why is toast so boring? Probably because you haven't placed butter on your bread before toasting it. 

If you find traditional toast boring — even after it's buttered — you should give this little hack a try. Instead of getting your bread hot and crispy and then adding butter to it, reverse the order of that process. The resulting toast is richer, more luxurious, and certainly crisper. There are plenty of benefits to improving the quality of your morning meal, even if it's just toast. Plus, elevating your toast game might make it easier to get your morning carbs in, which can help with memory, mood, and heart health, according to Eating Well.

Buttering your bread before toasting changes everything about the breakfast staple

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If you are new to the pre-buttered toast game, follow these three simple rules for the perfect toast experience every time. Before you butter your bread, leave the butter out to come up to room temperature. Butter temperature doesn't just matter for making pastry — old butter is really hard to spread and will tear the bread apart. Softened butter makes the process much easier. If you don't have softened butter on hand, Food Network suggests filling a bowl or cup with hot water and letting it sit for a short amount of time. Then, remove the water from the bowl and place it over the butter. The residual heat will soften your butter without melting it. 

When you toast your bread and then add butter to it, you are likely just adding enough butter to coat the top of the toast, advises Epicurious. When you reverse the steps, you make it so your bread can be completely coated in butter. The goal is not to simply add flavor to the top of the toast; you want the butter to melt into the bread to create a robust, luxurious eating experience. A thick slather of butter is needed to achieve this.

Buttering your bread before toasting requires you to follow a couple of additional rules

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Buttering your bread before you toast it can be an absolute game-changer, but there are a couple of important warnings to keep in mind. Most importantly, you should only toast pre-buttered bread in a toaster oven or a traditional broiler. As Epicurious notes, pre-buttered bread should never be placed in a pop-up toaster — fortunately, there are plenty of ways to toast bread without a toaster.

Placing buttered bread in a pop-up toaster poses a fire hazard. According to Consumer Reports, toasters caused over 1,300 house fires between 2002 and 2009. Placing foods that are not intended for a toaster into the appliance increases the risk of fire. Grease from the butter can easily bake on the heating element, scorch, and create a fire. Pop-up toasters should not be used to cook foods like steaks, as seen in a viral TikTok video several months back, either. Leave the pop-up toaster to its intended purpose: toasting plain bread, bagels, and the aptly named Pop-Tarts.

Epicurious also strongly recommends putting your bread on a baking sheet when toasting it in a toaster oven or broiler. For safety reasons, you don't want melted butter to come in contact with the heating element of your toaster oven (or oven). The baking sheet will also ensure any melted butter that doesn't soak into the top of your bread will get soaked up by the bottom of your toast. Despite the extra caution needed for this toasting technique, it's totally worth it.