How to Store Salted Butter
If salted butter is your go-to, it can be stored on your counter for a few days! Leaving a stick or two out at room temperature will do no harm if your kitchen is kept at 70 degrees or cooler. The salt content helps keep butter fresh, even out of the refrigerator. Once it’s softened, salted butter should be used within one week.
However, if butter is left out at room temperature for several days, the flavor can turn rancid so it’s best to leave out whatever you can use within a day or two.
Nah man. I thought this. My butter went bad and I didn’t realize until I ate a lot of it. I was putting it on bagels I was getting and I kept thinking they were mixing like rye seeds in there. That was the closest approximation I could conceive of because I thought the same as you.
Nope. I kept eating sour butter. It was fucking disgusting. Keep your butter in the fridge.
The USDA does not have a recommendation to keep butter in the fridge.
You store it in the fridge before use to preserve the shape.
Once you start using a stick, leave it out.
Edit: You can keep SALTED on the counter
From the American Butter Institute
https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/Is-butter-safe-at-room-temperature
Nah man. I thought this. My butter went bad and I didn’t realize until I ate a lot of it. I was putting it on bagels I was getting and I kept thinking they were mixing like rye seeds in there. That was the closest approximation I could conceive of because I thought the same as you.
Nope. I kept eating sour butter. It was fucking disgusting. Keep your butter in the fridge.
The USDA literally says the opposite of this. It turns rancid.
But don’t let some rando on the internet be the judge. Cut a stick in half, leave half out, wait a week, then taste.