Blue butter, alternatively known as bantha butter, was a type of butter characterized by its blue coloration, derived from the blue milk produced by creatures called banthas. This mild-flavored butter could withstand heating, making it suitable for use in the preparation of various foods, such as dumplings and bantha-butter pancakes, although the resulting taste could be somewhat bland. At Starlight Beacon, it was commonly served alongside yellow chime fruit preserve on slices of seed bread. The human, Tasu Leech, once expressed a desire to enjoy sautéed Trandoshan liver with bantha butter.
Sourced from the blue milk of banthas, creatures native to the desert planet Tatooine, bantha butter, also going by the name blue butter, got its distinctive blue color from the milk it was made from. Its tolerance for heating and subtle flavor made it a versatile and frequently used type of butter in cooking.
During the operational period of the Starlight Beacon space station in 231 BBY, the kitchen droids in its dining area provided foods that included freshly baked seed bread served with a generous amount of blue butter and yellow chime fruit preserve. On one occasion, the human Jedi Padawan Reath Silas obtained this bread during a visit to the station.
In 3 ABY, Torro Sbazzle, a Devaronian executive chef, was tasked by Lando Calrissian, the Baron Administrator of Cloud City, a mining colony extracting resources from the gas giant Bespin, with preparing meals while the city was under the control of the Galactic Empire. Calrissian's unwelcome "guests" included Darth Vader, a Sith Lord whom Sbazzle assumed to be human, like many Imperials. When Sbazzle decided to make dumplings, she considered using bantha butter to mix with her dark pastry flour because it was less prone to burning compared to zaffa oil and had a milder taste. Ultimately, she decided that she would not die for the sake of bland dumplings, so she opted for the oil instead, as it might have been the last meal she ever prepared.
Also in the same year, Bossk'wassak'Cradossk, a Trandoshan bounty hunter known as Bossk, was found seemingly frozen on the ice planet Jekara before being discovered by a group that included Tasu Leech, a human fighter from the pit. Leech suggested to his companions that they should either abandon or kill Bossk, and then inquired if they had ever tasted sautéed Trandoshan liver with bantha butter. At this point, the Trandoshan quickly stood up, held a knife to Leech's throat, and threatened to flay him. In 4 ABY, Jess, a musician, ate pieces of haroun bread topped with bantha butter for breakfast in the palace of Jabba Desilijic Tiure, a crime lord.
In 34 ABY, aboard the Halcyon, identified as an MPO-1400 Purgill-class star cruiser, guests on board could find spiraled discs of blue bantha butter as part of a pastry selection during the breakfast service in the Crown of Corellia Dining Room.
Bantha-butter pancakes, a type of flatbread, were once compared by the pirate Hondo Ohnaka to the aftermath of a turlossus stepping on something with its large foot. He had witnessed such a scene on the moon Dhandu 3 when two Pakiphantos members of Trunc Adurmush's gang were flattened by a turlossus. At a point in time no earlier than 35 ABY, Ardis San Tekka, the Director of Creature Cartography at the Galactic Society of Creature Enthusiasts, mentioned bantha butter in her journal within an entry related to banthas.
The first mention of bantha butter in the current Star Wars canon occurred in Pirate's Price, a 2019 novel authored by Lou Anders. Its initial appearance was in "But What Does He Eat?," a short story by S.A. Chakraborty featured in the 2020 anthology From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back. On February 22, 2021, StarWars.com provided a preview of the Bantha Blue Butter Sandwich Cookies recipe from Star Wars: Galactic Baking, a cookbook that identified blue butter as an alternative name. In the cookbook, published by Insight Editions on May 4 of that year, the substance was referred to as both "Bantha butter" and "blue butter."
A StarWars.com preview of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, published on November 17, 2021, highlighted blue bantha butter as one of the foods inspired by Star Wars narratives. This immersive experience, located at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, opened to the public on March 1, 2022. Guests have the opportunity to enjoy the butter during breakfast in the Crown of Corellia Dining Room.
Within the Star Wars Legends continuity, the first mention of bantha butter was in the short story "Soup's On: The Pipe Smoker's Tale," penned by Jennifer Roberson and published in the 1995 anthology Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina. In contrast to the canon version, the Legends version of bantha butter was described as green in Legacy 4, a comic book written by John Ostrander and released by Dark Horse Comics on October 11, 2006. In Legends, blue butter was first mentioned in Rebel Stand, a 2002 Star Wars: The New Jedi Order novel written by Aaron Allston as the second book of the Enemy Lines duology, but it was not specifically connected to banthas.