Description
Here are 3 easy methods for making your own buttermilk at home so you never have to get stuck with a quart that you can’t use up before it goes bad.
Ingredients
Easy buttermilk
- 2 cups whole milk preferred, but any type will work (472 mL)
- 2 Tablespoons lemon juice or vinegar (30 mL)
Dried buttermilk
- 2 cups milk, any type or water (472 mL)
- 1/2 cup buttermilk powder, such as Saco buttermilk (46 g), or up to 10 Tablespoons (see note)
Cultured buttermilk
- 2 cups milk, not non-dairy milks(472 mL)
- 1/2 packet of New England Cheesemaking buttermilk starter culture (0.7g)
Instructions
Easy buttermilk
- Stir the milk and lemon juice or vinegar together. Let the mixture sit for 5-10 minutes, though you can use it immediately in a recipe. You might notice some slight curdling; this is normal and completely fine.
Dried buttermilk
- Measure the dried buttermilk into a bowl. Pour over some of the milk and let it sit for a couple of minutes to rehydrate the powder.
- After about 2 minutes, whisk the mixture smooth, and then slowly stream in the rest of the milk while you keep on whisking. Alternatively, you can whiz the powder with a small amount of the milk in a blender and add the rest once it’s smooth. You can use this buttermilk directly in a recipe.
Cultured buttermilk
- Warm the milk to about 80 F. You do not want hot milk, you just want to take off the chill from the fridge. When the milk is about room temperature, stir in the culture. Pour the milk into a glass jar, and then set it out in a warm spot in your kitchen for 12-24 hours. By then, the milk will have thickened slightly and it will smell slightly sour. Note that if you wait longer than 24 hours, the whey might separate from the rest of the mixture. It’s still fine to use this!
- To make another batch of buttermilk, save 1/4 cup from the first one and add it as your culture for batch number 2 and so on. Done this way, you can keep culturing milk indefinitely. Though the package directions tell you that the buttermilk will keep for 1 week in the fridge, I’ve kept it up to 1 month without a problem providing you start with fresh milk.
Notes
Choose your culture: I’ve used both the New England Cheesemaking buttermilk culture and Cultures for Health buttermilk for a couple of years. They’re both excellent, though the NEC buttermilk is a better price point and gives you 5 packets (with 10 batches worth since I only make a pint at a time) vs. 2. Since technically you can keep your culture going forever, it doesn’t matter much, but if you’re like me and forget to make things with buttermilk for months, you might need to start a new batch.
More buttermilk flavor: for a stronger buttermilk flavor from the dried buttermilk, use 5 Tablespoons of powder per cup of milk. I like this strength better in general for flavor.
Bonus science fun: You can actually culture buttermilk from the dried buttermilk. Mix it up and set it on the counter as described for the cultured buttermilk. When I tried this, it had a different smell to it than the regular cultured buttermilk, but it still baked up great. You can do the same thing with the milk + vinegar/lemon. If you’re feeling science-y, both of these are a fun experiment.
- Prep Time: 2 minutes
- Category: Baking Building Blocks
- Method: no bake
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/4 cup
- Calories: 37
- Sugar: 3
- Sodium: 23
- Fat: 2
- Saturated Fat: 1
- Unsaturated Fat: 0
- Trans Fat: 0
- Carbohydrates: 3
- Fiber: 0
- Protein: 2
- Cholesterol: 7