The concept has inarguably gone viral, resulting in 360.4 million hashtags and nearly as many one-offs on TikTok as of November 8. Both influencers, recipe developers, and celebrities have taken creative liberty with the idea, swapping out thick swooshes of butter for cream cheese, peanut butter, and other spreadable dips that can be scooped up with warm pita, crudites, and sliced bread. Even Chef K, private chef to Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker, created a vegan rendition as requested by the couple.
Whether you’re skeptical about the sanitary reality of a communal dip or totally on board with the concept, here are seven vegan butter boards to try the trend yourself.
What is a butter board?
While the virtual food community didn’t happen upon the butter board en masse until TikToker Justine Doiron (@Justine_Snacks) posted her creation on September 15, the truly novel idea is credited to chef Josh McFadden. His James Beard Award-winning cookbook, Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables, includes a loose recipe for a communal appetizer that features a base of softened butter schmeared artistically onto a board then topped with flaky sea salt, fresh herbs, and other garnishes of choice. Doiron attributes her original video to McFadden and tops her first board with salt, fresh coriander, honey, and edible flowers, swooping it all up with a thick slice of chewy, fluffy wheat bread.
Country Crock
Now with over one million likes, 6,000 comments, and 124,000 shares, Doiron’s butter board has seen countless iterations. Most stay true to the butter base, but others have run wild with the concept, creating peanut butter boards, Nutella boards, cream cheese boards, and more. It’s an edible idea that lends itself to infinite creativity and dietary preference—it’s no wonder it continues to trend.
Butter board controversy
The blatant controversy over scooping up mounds of butter spread over a porous wood surface is potentially what’s keeping this trend in conversation. While communal snacking has resurrected following the global pandemic, it’s one thing to pick off a cheese board and another to scoop butter off a shared board using a piece…