Bone Marrow Butter with Rosemary and Parsley

Heather Dessinger

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bone marrow butter

Bone broth is well-documented for its many health benefits. But did you know that you can take that grass-fed marrow and make a nutrient-dense, delicious butter?

What is Bone Marrow Butter?

When bone marrow is frozen still inside the bone, it’s hard to distinguish from the bone itself. But when roasted, the marrow melts like butter. It’s rich, nutty flavor is a delightful complement to grass-fed butter. When you combined these two delicious ingredients you have “bone marrow butter”. The mixture can be used in many cases like regular butter.

Is Bone Marrow Healthy?

Bone marrow is a staple of many indigenous cultures. It is often served to children because of it’s high nutrient content. While it’s unclear the exact nutritional profile of bone marrow, experts believe it is an important health food and likely contains:

  • healthy polyunsaturated fats – Important for heart health.
  • vitamin K – Important for heart, bone, oral, and brain health.
  • phospholipids and methionine – Both are important for brain function.

Additionally, bone marrow is a significant source of the hormone adiponectin. This hormone helps keep the body and metabolism healthy. Specifically, it can help maintain insulin sensitivity and break down fat.

Is Butter Healthy?

Though butter has gotten a bad rap in the past, it is actually a very healthy food that traditional cultures have eaten for generations. The health benefits of butter include:

  • Protects against heart disease – Butter is not the cause of heart disease as many of us have heard. In fact, butter consumption went down around the time that heart disease began to rapidly increase in prevalence.
  • Heals teeth – Butter contains fat-soluble vitamins that help heal and remineralize the teeth.
  • Supports thyroid function – Butter contains vitamin A and iodine — both of which are important for thyroid health.
  • May protect against cancer – Butter has medium and short-chain fatty acids that have anti-cancer properties.
  • Rich source of Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) – Important for reducing inflammation, soothing asthma, promoting weight loss, strengthening bones, and boosting the immune system.

Butter is also delicious, so it’s easy to get kids to enjoy it (and reap the nutritional benefits)!

Want More? Healing Recipes to Try

If you’re looking for more healing foods to try on your family, here are some of great ones:

Broccoli Cheddar Soup – Made with chicken broth, yellow onions and cheddar cheese, this thick and hearty soup is perfect for wintertime (and every other time).

Superfood Chili – It’s hard to believe that a chili containing liver could be delicious, but this family favorite beef and liver chili satisfies even the heartiest appetites.

Very Berry Resistant Starch Smoothie – This resistant starch smoothie recipe features vitamin C rich berries, prebiotics in the form of resistant starch, and other goodies.

Bacon and Chicken Liver Pâté – Liver makes another appearance in this pate. It’s perfect for kids learning to like organ meats!

Simple Korean Kimchi – Kimchi has gained significant popularity within the healthy living community. Besides being delicious, it contains live probiotics that help colonize the gut.

Also, check out this article for helpful information about how to find and use bone marrow and the bones left after extracting the marrow.

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4.79 from 19 votes

Bone Marrow Butter Recipe

A delicious way to include healthy bone marrow in your diet!
Course Condiments
Keyword butter, topping
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings 1 cup
Calories 69kcal
Author Heather Dessinger

Equipment

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 425°F.
  • Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  • Spread the bones, marrow side up, on the baking sheet.
  • Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until the marrow in the center of each bone is bubbly and soft all the way through.
  • Let marrow bones cool enough to be handled, then scoop out the marrow into a food processor.
  • Add the softened butter, salt, rosemary or thyme, and fresh parsley to the food processor.
  • Blend until smooth.
  • Use as you would butter and refrigerate leftover.

Notes

Try tossing this bone marrow butter with roasted vegetables!

Nutrition

Serving: 1TBSP | Calories: 69kcal | Carbohydrates: 0.1g | Protein: 2.5g | Fat: 6.6g | Saturated Fat: 4.1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0g | Trans Fat: 0g | Cholesterol: 27mg | Sodium: 89mg | Potassium: 0mg | Fiber: 0.1g | Sugar: 0g | Vitamin A: 0IU | Vitamin C: 0mg | Calcium: 0mg | Iron: 0mg

Have you ever used bone marrow? What do you do with it?

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About HEATHER

Heather is a holistic health educator, herbalist, DIYer, Lyme and mold warrior. Since founding Mommypotamus.com in 2009, Heather has been taking complicated health research and making it easy to understand. She shares tested natural recipes and herbal remedies with millions of naturally minded mamas around the world. 

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Recipe Rating




85 thoughts on “Bone Marrow Butter with Rosemary and Parsley”

    • It will keep a little better than the butter you used to make it does. That’s because the fats found in the marrow are good at food preservation. So, if you’re using a homemade, unwashed butter AND leaving this out on the counter — maybe a week? But if you’re using a washed butter (most of the buttermilk removed) and refrigerating it? Months. It’ll freeze just as well as butter does, too.

      Reply
    • Lisa,
      If you can’t have butter, I would simply eat the bone marrow freshly cooked…it is just like a beefy butter without the butter…obviously you can’t use it like you would this, but it is absolutely devine!

      Reply
  1. Rebecca Bucher Shryock thought of you. Since your guy is a little cowboy, would be awesome if this could help him in any way. May not be applicable, but can’t hurt and sounds mighty yummy. Hope you all are doing well.

    Reply
  2. Hospitals in the US couldn’t do it though, there’s not enough organic, grass-fed cows to get the healthy marrow from. It would create too high of demand for that product and that is opposite of what Big Ag is, as well as Big Pharma, and the current legislation wouldn’t support it either. There would have to be an overhaul in our agricultural, pharmaceutical, and legislative cooperations. BUT a fabulous idea, glad to see it’s working.

    Reply
    • I’m with you on this one. In fact: double ewwwwww.
      I believe that If one can’t afford organic animal products, it’s better for us individually and for the environment as a whole, to swear off them. Just my opinion….

      Reply
  3. There are lots of great benefits to bone marrow. When we were growing up my Mom would make lamb curry with bone marrow and insisted we eat the marrow so we wouldn’t get sick(boost our immune system)

    Reply
  4. I am not sure I could sacrifice the bone marrow to butter..LOL I love it just with a spoon. Great recipe!

    Reply
  5. Can anyone give any insight into what bone marrow tastes like? I’m definitely interested in this…but need some mental preparation…

    Reply
  6. I’ve been told it is considered a delicacy and is delicious..I don’t know that I’m willing to try it though….

    Reply
  7. As a kid, I always cracked open my chicken bones to eat the marrow inside-why, I don’t know. It may just be a coincidence, but I have been a teacher for 7 years (2 of those years being a pre-school teacher), and I have yet to catch anything that was enough to stop me in my tracks.

    Reply
  8. Wow! I’ve never thought of this (nor heard of it!). What an adventure in eating. I’ll definitely have to try it. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  9. It’s very common in other country’s to eat bone marrow. My husband was Egyptian, and always gave our little girl the marrow to eat. She’s grown, and still loves to eat it.

    Reply
  10. I am french and as a child i used to share the bone marrow with my grand dad. We spread it on bread with a sprinkle of salt. Its delicious!!

    Reply
  11. I was wondering if there was a good dairy substitute for those of us who have an intolerance? I was thinking grass fed tallow? I can’t do ghee otherwise I would suspect ghee to be good. Palm shortening? Thanks! namaste.

    Reply
    • Why don’t you try whisking it up with some old fashioned (non hydrogentated) pastured lard? The marrow, lard, rosemary and sea salt will make it into a flavorful whipped no-butter butter!

      Reply
      • Beth, that sounds amazing! I was trying to think of a dairy free mix myself. I will have to try that. I have some pastured pig fat in my freezer that needs rendering…

        Reply
  12. my dogs must be benefiting from their twice weekly raw marrow bones. I also love to sip on bone broth in cold weather.

    Reply
  13. Wow! Thanks for the great info and recipe. Next week, I’ll ask my favorite vendor at the farmer’s market if he’s got any marrow bones. (I get all kinds of grass-fed beef products from him.) Can’t wait to try this!

    Reply
  14. Trying to understand how to put the bones on the sheet. “Marrow side up” sounds confusing to me. Sorry for sounding so clueless – just not very experienced with beef bones! 🙂

    Reply
    • Cut side up. However, if you lay your bones on their side, it will take several million years before the world ends.

      Reply
  15. you gotta love it when scientists “discover” health benefits of sources that have been in use since the ancient times… thanks for another great recipe 😉

    Reply
  16. This sounds pretty amazing. Raw marrow scooped right out of the bone has the silky smooth texture of actual butter. Just add a little salt. It melts in the mouth.

    Reply
  17. I am having trouble finding decently priced grass fed beef in my area. I do raise our own pigs and I wonder if their bones would work?

    Reply
  18. Thank you Kristen! When I make roasted bone broth with our grass fed steer bones I make a bone marrow spread, but never though about making it with raw butter. Must be so good.

    Reply
  19. this sounds delicious! could you give me an idea of the total weight of the bones needed since i’ve seen them in varying lengths? if i bought them at a butcherless health food store and they needed to be cut down what in the world would i use to cut them to 2 inch lengths? thank you for sharing this recipe. it promises to be a keeper! (and much healthier than the butter/mascarpone spread i recently came across).

    Reply
    • It doesn’t matter how the bones are cut, so long as the roasted marrow is easily scoop able. You want about a half cup of marrow for this.

      Reply
  20. I just made this and the ick factor is high lol having never experienced bone marrow in any way before…but the health benefits were compelling enough to make me want to try it!! Thanks for posting!
    I’ve got it slathered all over my mashed potatoes and steamed zuchs! Yum!

    Reply
      • Lol I think so… I’m pretty willing to try just about anything in the traditional food realm cuz those things are just so dang good for us, but I’m not sure I’ll get over the ick factor for a while… 😉 Good thing I have a stomach of steel!

        Reply
  21. This looks amazing!!!! I heart bone marrow so much, and I heart butter so much; this would literally be the best meal ever.

    Reply
  22. Cheryl Christensen, all of the recipes we post are links. If you click on the picture, it will send you to the website where you can view the recipe. Happy cooking!

    Reply
  23. Greetings,

    I read recently that sheep and goat bones, which can have a good quality often available pretty cheaply in Hispanic and Mediterranean centric markets, carry very similar nutritive properties – and, where keeping the bone nice is not an issue, can be easier to work with as you can pretty easily smash them into the size/ configuration you’d like. I have not tried this yet, but am interested (especially as we might be starting a small flock of our own, soon.) Has anyone tried this out, found any recipes they are particularly good or not for, etc?

    On a similar vein ; – ) I was wondering about the differences in working with pork bones, etc and the beef/ lamb bones – and if anyone has worked with pheasant bones or other nonstandard fowl for making stock or other recipes? (We’re looking at putting together a small variety of animals of our own and/or looking for nearby sources, and thinking through the possibilities right now. A brave new world for us ; – ))

    Thanks! Cheers,
    Heather

    Reply
  24. I tried this but the bones had an almost fishy smell…but I don’t know if that means they’ve turned, or if it’s because I bought them in a store that sells fish right next to the meats….anyone?

    Reply
    • Ask the meat department where you bought it why they think it smells like that. If it’s from being near the fish, chances are they’ve had that complaint before and they’ll be able to tell you that’s the reason.

      Reply
  25. Made this last night. I couldn’t get 2″ bones and I wasn’t about to get out a saw (neither was the meat department guy I bought them from) so I just roasted one 6″ femur bone, and used about a stick of butter. I meant to do half and half with butter and marrow, but I ended up with more butter. As a result, it tastes like butter… Going to try again with the other bone and less butter once I run out of this batch!

    Also, this was my first time trying bone marrow. I tasted it before I mixed it with the butter and it just tasted like beef fat. Am I missing something? Why does everyone go nuts for it?

    Reply
  26. Hi Grassfood.,
    Was curious about your bone marrow spread that you make. Interested in sharing your recipe? I’ve been scouring the internet for bone marrow pate recipes with little avail. This butter recipe is the closest I’ve gotten!

    Reply
  27. Hi. I tried bone marrow today. Couldn’t find grass fed beef but I thought i would give it a shot anyway. It had a strong fishy smell/taste. Is this normal? I tried to make it into a pudding but it was way too fishy.

    Reply
  28. Greetings Is it okay to buy longer marrow bones and cut them into 2in sections I have a source for bones but the don’t come shorter than 4 ins. T

    Reply
  29. I salivated over this recipe for weeks, until I had the opportunity to try it. It would be helpful though to know the weight of the actual marrow that is being mixed with the butter. Despite having the required number of bone pieces I don’t think I had enough marrow. The final product was a little lame on flavour. Considering that 1/2 c. of butter = 1/4 lb., should I prepare enough marrow to equal 1/4 lb.? More? Less? In other words, what should the marrow to butter ratio be?

    Reply
  30. 5 stars
    Wonderful reciped! I found it because someone talked of this on Instagram.
    After all, fat is fat!
    Animal fat is where nutrition lives: fat-soluble vitamins!
    But animals must be in their natural diet.

    Grain-fed is evil for a various points of view.

    Reply
  31. Hi Heather I love all of your recipes! 🙂 I was wondering if you have a favorite brand of grass fed butter that you could recommend ? 🙂

    Reply
  32. I’ve always been a huge fan of bone marrow! Our parents used to feed it to us as kids… when I make bone broth I always scoop out the marrow with a spoon before using the bones for broth. I just followed this recipe and the marrow butter is chilling in the fridge. I had a little taste of it and it’s AMAZING. Thank you!

    Reply