The Intense Amount Of Butter Ree Drummond Used While Filming Season One Of The Pioneer Woman

Ree Drummond loves butter. In fact, she's downright obsessed with the stuff. While you might purchase a few sticks or a tub, Drummond stocks her fridge with it by the pound. In case you're picturing a pound or two — nope — think more like "10 to 15 pounds" at a time, which is what she actually buys (per The Pioneer Woman). A believer in the philosophy of more-is-better, Drummond's zeal for the ingredient comes down to its flavor, color, and as she describes, it adds "joy to absolutely everything I cook" (via The Pioneer Woman). She states that it gives her life purpose, and she'd vote for butter as president. If you assume she's kidding, think again.

In 2011, Drummond published a blog post about how in just two weeks, she used 121 pounds of butter while filming recipes for her cooking show. To put that in perspective, it's the equivalent of 484 butter sticks in 14 days. She then detailed how she feels when unwrapping a stick of butter, using language that practically borders on erotic.

Topping that, in her book "Frontier Follies: Adventures in Marriage and Motherhood in the Middle of Nowhere," Drummond disclosed that during the filming of her show's first season, she actually used 131 pounds of butter. Considering that four sticks of butter weigh one pound, that's 524 sticks of butter. With six episodes in "The Pioneer Woman" Season 1, you're looking at around 87 sticks per episode.

Try not to be too jealous of Ree Drummond's dream job. Not only does she spend her time cooking with her favorite ingredient, but she was also paid to endorse it too. In 2012, Drummond announced a partnership with Land O'Lakes to promote the launch of its Butter with Olive Oil and Sea Salt. While there are many different kinds of butter and ways to use them, the olive oil blend is made for sauteeing with or can be used straight out of the fridge and spread on toast. 

Drummond's contribution to butter culture doesn't stop there. She's partially responsible for TikTok's viral cowboy butter for steak craze. She was on-trend well before that took off around 2023, having introduced her recipe for ribeye steaks with cowboy butter on a 2014 episode of her show. Her version is made with fresh herbs, red pepper flakes, garlic, and lemon zest, but the variations are limitless. For example, you could treat your steak to a boozy compound butter, utilizing a splash of brandy, tequila, or vermouth and gin.

As far as too much butter, there's no such thing in Drummond's world. Her recipe for Texas sheet cake actually gets its decadent deliciousness from a happy accident. When she first made the cake following her mother-in-law's recipe, she made a mistake and used twice the amount of butter needed for the frosting (per The Pioneer Woman). The result was so good that she's doubled the measurement ever since. 

In a 2022 exclusive interview where Mashed referred to Drummond as "the unofficial queen of using butter," she was asked how she determines if a dish has enough of it. She affirmed that she's "judgmental about a lack of butter," and that whenever bread is involved, copious butter usage is usually always better than not enough.

She also explained how she'd used more than half a stick of butter to make three egg-in-a-holes (fried eggs in the center of a piece of toast) for her husband. She wants to hear that butter sizzle and for there to be plenty for the bread to sop up. Lest you still doubt her dedication to her favorite fat, just take a stab at what ingredient Ree Drummond adds to upgrade store-bought saltines. If you guessed butter, well, of course, you're right.

Furthermore, Drummond has a problem with the way we make cinnamon toast. According to her, spreading butter on bread, sprinkling it with cinnamon sugar, then toasting it is all kinds of wrong. Instead, she insists the right way is to maximize coverage with a sweet compound butter. Her method is to first mix cinnamon and sugar along with vanilla and nutmeg into melted butter, which she then slathers on the bread. She bakes it for a few minutes in the oven before popping it under the broiler. This results in a sweet, crunchy top and bread soaked all the way through with gooey, melted butter.