Just mentioning buttermilk makes me start craving things like warm biscuits and jam, quick bread studded with blueberries, and big piles of fluffy pancakes. Yum. Buttermilk is definitely a kitchen super star, gracing many of our favorite recipes with its creamy, tangy presence. What are your best recipes with buttermilk?
True buttermilk is made from the whey leftover from making buttermilk. Thanks to some lacto-fermentation, it cultures into a thick yet pourable cream. However, most of the commercial buttermilk these days is made more like yogurt: by warming low-fat milk, introducing a specific culture, and letting it thicken. Still tasty and good for you, but not quite the same as traditional buttermilk.
We most often think of using buttermilk in baked goods like muffins and pancakes, but that's certainly not the extent of its repertoire. We use it to give coleslaw its classic tart flavor and creamy texture, whisk it into salad dressings, add it to smoothies, and even use it to make cheese.
What are your favorite ways to use buttermilk?
Buttermilk Substitutes
If you don't have buttermilk on-hand when you need it, you can substitute an equal amount of yogurt thinned with a little milk, kefir, or make your own substitute:
1 cup milk (whole, 2%, or skim) + 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice, let stand for five minutes before using
More on Buttermilk
• Reader Feedback: What Can We Do with Buttermilk?
• Food Science: What Is Buttermilk?
• Good Tip: Freezing Leftover Buttermilk
• How to Make Buttermilk Quick Bread: With 10 Variations
• How to Make Buttermilk Biscuits from Scratch
• The Best Buttermilk Pancakes Ever
• Classic Southern Coleslaw
• Make Cheese at Home: Fresh Buttermilk Cheese
Related: Three Ways to Make Yogurt without a Yogurt Maker
(Images: aragami12345s/Shutterstock and Emma Christensen)
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I like soaking chicken in a spiced buttermilk mixture for fried chicken!
Three words: potato leek soup! I use a recipe from Alton Brown: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/leek-potato-soup-recipe/index.html
and double the buttermilk to make it extra tangy and delightful.
One of my favorite dressings these days combines buttermilk with a spoonful of cilantro chutney (from the local world grocery store). Add some fresh lime juice and it is the BEST on spinach and sweet corn salads. And a healthy summer alternative to oil-laden dressings.
ranch or blue cheese dressing hands down
Oatmeal buttermilk pancakes. Divine.
I recently made a fantastic batch of roasted strawberry buttermilk ice cream from this popular ice cream book.
Smitten Kitchen has some great uses for buttermilk on her lineup of recipes. One of my favorites is her broccoli slaw. She also posted a buttermilk ice cream recipe.
No one has said biscuits? Biscuits.
Second Barlowgirl--I made buttermilk biscuits for breakfast this morning! Yum. The unbaked ones went into the freezer for future quick breakfasts. I also love buttermilk pancakes, several muffin recipes, Irish wheaten bread (a whole-wheat buttermilk quick bread), and a couple of fantastic berry cake recipes from Smitten Kitchen (one is light and small, perfect 2-person cake, while the other is a denser, pound-cake-like bundt).
Obviously I like my baked goods. : ) I've never really gotten into savory uses for it, but haven't really tried many since I have no problem using up a quart before it goes off (it lasts a long long time). And lately I've been keeping the powdered kind around, which keeps even longer.
Salad dressing! Ohhh yeah. Add sour cream, mayo, garlic powder, salt and parsley and you're in business!