Out Of Sour Cream? This Hack Could Save You In A Pinch

Whether you're cooking with it, baking with it, or using to make no-mayo deviled eggs, sour cream is a delightfully tangy kitchen workhorse that is both widely available in stores and typically pretty inexpensive. However, if you find yourself reaching for that tub in the fridge, only to open it and see that it has gone bad (or someone used it all up and put the near-empty container back), your first thought is likely, dangit, and your second is, what do I do now?

Luckily, homemade sour cream is surprisingly easy to make. You just need a cream and an acid, so if you have some heavy cream on hand, perfect. You very likely have white distilled vinegar (cooking type, not cleaning type) or lemon juice somewhere in your pantry, too. That's it, that's all you need to make sour cream at home; just combine them in a closed container and shake, shake, shake it until they've incorporated and thickened.

You can use it immediately, or leave it on your counter for a day so that it gets thicker and tangier. Or, if you have a few hours, pop it in your fridge to chill, and it will thicken up in there, too. Homemade sour cream might not be worth making in a non-emergency situation (like if you're just looking for a dip for your chips), but when you need it in a hurry for a recipe, it'll come in clutch.

If you don't have a cream on hand to make your own sour cream, you might have one of these substitutes hanging out in your fridge instead, including the best option, plain Greek yogurt. This item mimics sour cream in both taste and texture, and it can be used as a 1:1 replacement in recipes. Whether in baking or making a French onion dip, Greek yogurt is a worthy substitute that checks almost all the boxes sour cream does. A rather surprising ingredient you can also use is mayonnaise, which even bakes up into a pretty mean chocolate cake.

If you have cottage cheese or ricotta, those can be used as proxies for sour cream, particularly the full-fat versions. However, the texture is an issue, since both tend to be clumpy; smooth out either in a food processor or blender until whipped and creamy. And while it's a lot thinner than both Greek yogurt and either of the aforementioned cheeses, buttermilk is a worthy replacement for sour cream, especially in baking. However, because of its consistency, slightly less should be used than however much sour cream is called for in the batter.