Compound butters are a delicious addition to your menu ideas all year long.

The butter flecked with bits of cinnamon and flakes of brown sugar that make your waffles taste even better on a cold winter morning can also be the dab of delicious for your summer corn laced with the kick of ancho chile powder, and studded with chives, for the ears of summer corn or hefty steak coming off the grill.

The combination of flavors is only up to you and your imagination. And the compound butter adds a layer of ingredients and taste to everything from the breakfast menu to the lunch items and the dinner table offerings.

Compound butter sounds like something that is a high-end part of menu choices. It requires no more effort than bringing a cold stick of butter to room temperature and adding some  ingredients.

It can be savory for a steak or grilled chicken breast, with some rosemary and thyme leaves, or sweet with mint from the garden melting on a strawberry shortcake or a peach cobbler for the summer dessert selections.

The no-salt butter is left on the counter to get to room temperature. Once it has softened, you can make the choice for the butter to be used as an ingredient to add to a lunch or dinner dish or something that lends itself to the sweeter side with a breakfast or a dessert dish.

These kinds of flavored butters are sold in markets at an inflated price because they are offering a customized kind of butter. Don’t pick these up in the market when it is so easy to make your own and be in complete control of the ingredients.

Sure, a chive butter placed on top of a steak when it is still hot off the grill is a nice slick of flavor for the grilled meat. But a compound butter melting down on top of it with some chives and oregano from the garden is an explosion of flavor.

Unwrap a stick of butter and decide which direction you want to tackle. It’s the same for savory as it is for sweet. You just have to use the background of creamy butter and splash whatever ingredients you desire across the canvas.

A compound butter can add another profile to dinner, breakfast or dessert. It’s up to you how you decide to use it.

Tomorrow is another day!