How To Easily Make Buttermilk At Home

Buttermilk is useful in the kitchen, but it feels fleeting. Everyone's been in the unenviable position of realizing you have everything you need for a recipe except that fickle fermented dairy. It always seems to turn up as the missing ingredient. Once that happens, you might think your only options are purchasing a large container of buttermilk — only to use a small portion while the remainder sits in your fridge until eventually going bad — or finding a less-than-ideal substitute. 

But don't despair or scrap your recipe just yet. Buttermilk is surprisingly easy to make at home, and it requires just a few common ingredients that you likely have in your kitchen at this very moment. It's worth mentioning this isn't real buttermilk, but it will mimic the properties of buttermilk well enough for baking and cooking, thus relieving you of an extra grocery trip. The process takes just a few short minutes and requires very little cooking skill. If you can measure and pour, you can make these buttermilk substitutes.

While many of us have seen buttermilk at the grocery store, there might be some confusion about what it actually is. By definition, buttermilk is the liquid leftover from making butter. As the milk and cream churn, the fat sticks together, forming butter, and separates from the liquid surrounding it.

That said, modern buttermilk — the kind you can buy at the grocery store — is made by adding cultures to milk, much like you would to create sour cream or other fermented dairy products. The end result is slightly acidic, which is important not only for taste but also on a chemical level. Baking soda, for example, requires a certain amount of acidity to react and bubble. (Think about the classic baking soda and vinegar volcano — you wouldn't get the same reaction if you simply dropped water in.) So when we make buttermilk at home, we need to make sure we incorporate enough acid to help create the same sort of reaction.

To make buttermilk at home, you will need a base. In most cases, this will be milk, but we also include a method that uses sour cream. If you are dairy-free, you can use a milk alternative with some of these methods and achieve a similar result.

In addition to the base, you will need an acid. For two of our methods, this will be either distilled white vinegar or lemon juice. The third relies again on sour cream, which already has cultures in it and is acidic. (For that method, the milk is used to achieve the correct consistency rather than serve as a base.)

In addition to these ingredients, you will need a bowl, a one-cup measuring cup, a one-teaspoon measuring spoon, and a way to juice the lemon if you're using one. You will also need a spoon for mixing. There is no additional or special equipment required for this project.

Measure 1 cup of milk — use whatever fat level you have on hand. Pour the milk into a bowl that is big enough to hold it all and a little more.

Helena Nichols/ Chowhound

Measure 2 tablespoons of white distilled vinegar. Do not use balsamic or any other kind of strongly flavored vinegar. Add the 2 tablespoons into the bowl with the milk.

Helena Nichols/ Chowhound

Give the contents a little mix. Let it stand at room temperature for 10 minutes. 

Helena Nichols/ Chowhound

After 10 minutes, you'll notice the mixture has curdled slightly and formed lumps. This means it is ready to use.

Place your lemon on a cutting board and cut it in half with your knife.

Helena Nichols/Chowhound

Take one half of the lemon and use your favorite method to juice it into a bowl — you can use a handheld citrus juicer or just your hand to squeeze the juice out. Then, juice the other half into the same bowl. Be sure to remove any seeds that might have fallen in.

Helena Nichols/Chowhound

Next, measure 1 cup of milk. (Again, use whatever fat level you have on hand.) As before, pour the milk into a bowl that is big enough to hold it all, plus a bit more.

Helena Nichols/Chowhound

Using a measuring spoon, retrieve 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and pour into the bowl of milk.

Helena Nichols/Chowhound

Stir the lemon juice and milk mixture and let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes. Once again, you'll notice the contents have thickened up and formed lumps, which means it's ready to use.

Measure ½ cup of milk and pour it into a bowl.

Helena Nichols/ Chowhound

Next, measure ½ cup of sour cream. Pour this into the same bowl as the milk.

Helena Nichols/ Chowhound

Mix the milk and sour cream together to combine and create a thinner consistency. Unlike the others, this can be used immediately for baking.

After the appropriate amount of waiting time, you can use these buttermilk substitutes right away. However, you can also make them ahead of time and use them at a later date. 

After mixing up your preferred buttermilk substitute and placing it in a sealed container, it will keep in the refrigerator for about a week. That said, we recommend making and using this substitute on an as-need basis to avoid storing anything extra in your fridge.

There's a reason buttermilk plays a part in so many classic recipes. In addition to providing a light and airy texture to certain foods, buttermilk can add a delicious acidic note to a variety of dishes. Its most popular application is in pancakes. Whether you are making them from scratch or doctoring up a box mix, adding buttermilk to your pancakes will make them fluffier and tastier.

If you're sticking with breakfast but are thinking more along savory lines, go with buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy. It also works as Ina Garten's secret ingredient for creamy potato salad. You can even braise pork shoulder in buttermilk for a unique main dish that's also super easy to cook. But no buttermilk roundup would be complete without mentioning buttermilk chicken and waffles, the pinnacle of breakfast — or dinner — decadence.