And in most instances, the “salted” butter I use on the aforementioned items is really just unsalted butter that I’ve seasoned myself, or in some cases, a pat of unsalted butter with a tiny sprinkling of salt on top. I will also note that salted butter actually lasts longer than unsalted, since the salt basically acts as a preservative, so unsalted butter is also usually fresher, since it’s being replaced more often in-store than salted. Beyond the control discussion, though, salted butter can also adversely affect your dishes: adding salted butter to an already-seasoned sauce might take it over the salty mark, while including salted butter in a cookie dough might offset the sweet-salty ratio.