TikTok’s Buttered Noodles Recipe Is the Easiest Dish You’ll Make All Week

Buttered noodles seem to be everywhere these days—social media, fancy restaurants, your kitchen… The classic, hyper-simple dish is a comfort food and a crowd pleaser, and has recently entered a new era thanks to TikTok, where “#butterednoodlesrecipe” has more than 328 million views. Users of the social media platform have been elevating the typically two-ingredient meal, catapulting it into its luxurious phase. Ready to level up your buttered noodles? Here’s how to do it (and it’s still super easy).

Buttered Noodles Recipe

Want to make buttered noodles at home? Follow the step-by-step recipe below.

1. In a large pan or Dutch oven, melt several knobs of unsalted butter on low heat, adding an ice cube to slow the melt and make a sauce. Set aside.
2. Cook your desired pasta (any noodle will do!) in salted, boiling water until almost al dente, about 2-3 minutes less than the package directions. The pasta should still have a firmness to it.
3. Transfer the pasta to the butter sauce, along with a big slosh of starchy pasta cooking water. Toss in more butter to coat. Finish cooking the pasta in the butter sauce, stirring and adding more cooking water as needed. Add salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, if desired, and serve!
   

Buttered Noodle Upgrades

So what makes this easy pasta recipe so delicious? The simple cooking technique used here allows the butter to fully cling to your noodles, coating them in buttery goodness and offering a restaurant-worthy glossy hue.

And while this quick tweak is enough to level up your buttered noodles, there are so many additional ways to modify the dish.

First, opt for premium ingredients. Dried noodles cut from a bronze dye, such as Barilla Bronzo or Pasta Rummo offer more textured surface area on the noodle, which helps the sauce adhere even better and offers a more satisfying bite. Top quality butter, from grass-fed cows, will also upgrade your butter sauce.

Using flavored butter, like homemade compound butter or store-bought butters such as Churn or Epicurean Butter, will infuse buttered noodles with extra flavor. “The simplest way to take a simple dish like buttered noodles to the next level is by adding a flavored butter, like truffle butter or scampi butter,” says Ryan Schmidtberger, executive chef and partner of Hancock St., a Manhattan restaurant that serves a very popular Adult Kid’s Pasta. The restaurant’s version is made with homemade dried lumache, two-year aged Parmesan, and cultured butter, with the option to add shaved truffles or caviar on top—two luxe additions that are easy to replicate at home.

Toppings don’t have to be pricey though—fresh cut soft herbs (think parsley or basil), a pinch of microgreens, or toasted breadcrumbs can add a sophisticated texture to the soft dish.  

Cooking aromatics in your butter sauce, such as minced garlic or shallots, adds another layer of sophisticated flavor to the dish.

Splashing a bit of white wine in the butter sauce and letting the alcohol cook off will also add some sweetness and nuance to the noodles, definitely bringing an “adult” quality to the bowl of steaming pasta you’re about to devour.