Everything you need to know about cooking and baking with buttermilk including how to make your own buttermilk substitute at home.
Creamy, tangy, and thicker than regular milk, buttermilk can be found in a variety of favorite recipes. It’s a staple ingredient in Southern biscuits or fried chicken and provides that signature tang to diner pancakes and red velvet cake. Unfortunately, it’s not an ingredient many people keep on hand, and it can be hard to use up the whole carton. Not to worry! You’ll find plenty of buttermilk substitutes below (including dairy free options!) no matter what you plan on making.
What is buttermilk?
Traditionally, buttermilk is the liquid leftover after churning butter. What is sold in most grocery stores is cultured buttermilk, which is made by adding lactic acid bacteria to regular milk. Buttermilk has a sour taste and can be drunk straight or used in cooking and baking.
Where To Buy Buttermilk:
Buttermilk is usually sold in small cartons or bottles. Find it in the refrigerated section of your grocery store, near other milk products like sour cream and heavy cream.
Powdered buttermilk, or buttermilk powder, is a shelf stable powder that makes liquid buttermilk when combined with water or milk. The general ratio used is 1 part buttermilk powder to 1 part liquid.
How To Make Homemade Buttermilk:
You can also make traditional buttermilk by making your own butter at home! To make your own butter, you will need heavy cream, a mason jar, and some upper body strength. For a quick and easy option, use a stand mixer instead. Process until the cream solidifies and butter forms. The remaining liquid is buttermilk. To thicken, you’ll need to culture your buttermilk.
Can I Substitute Milk for Buttermilk?
Buttermilk reacts with rising agents, like baking soda and baking powder, to form carbon dioxide and act as a leavening agent. If you have a recipe that calls for both buttermilk and a rising agent, you shouldn’t substitute regular milk. Either purchase a carton or make your own substitution for buttermilk at home.
Easy Buttermilk Substitutes
If buttermilk isn’t available, or you don’t want to make a special trip to the store, you can create a homemade substitution for buttermilk with ingredients you already have on hand! Find exact measurements and instructions in the recipe card below.
- Milk + Lemon Juice
- Milk + Vinegar
- Milk + Cream of Tartar
- Milk + Sour Cream or Plain Greek Yogurt
You can also use plain American-style yogurt as a buttermilk replacement in many baking recipes. Since it has a nice, thin consistency, simply measure out the amount listed for the buttermilk.
Dairy Free Options
You can use any of the first three combinations listed above — lemon juice, distilled white vinegar, or cream of tartar — with your choice of dairy free milk. Oat milk or soy milk will provide the most similar texture and flavor to dairy milk, while almond milk may come out a bit thinner. Keep in mind that soy is naturally sweet, so we recommend one of the other options for savory recipes.
Other varieties will also work in a pinch, but sometimes coconut milk and rice milk have a hard time curdling or thickening just right. You may need to experiment to find what works best for you!
Choosing A Buttermilk Replacement
Not all buttermilk substitutes are alike, so you may need to be more selective depending on the type of recipe you make. Milk with either lemon juice or vinegar will work in just about any recipe, especially breads and pastries. It’s also more likely that you will have what you need on hand.
Choose the cream of tartar option when you want that signature tangy flavor but need a looser batter or dough. It’s also a good choice for cream sauces so they don’t become too thick. For buttermilk pancakes, fried chicken, or meat marinades, use one of the sour cream or yogurt options.
Storage and Reheating Instructions
It’s so quick and easy to make homemade buttermilk substitutes, so we suggest mixing just what you need as you need it. If you happen to use this ingredient frequently, you can store larger batches in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Keep the mixture in a tightly sealed jar or container and give it a good shake before each use.
You can also freeze your buttermilk replacement for future recipes. Add it to a freezer-safe container, leaving space at the top for the liquid to expand. For smaller amounts, divide the liquid into an ice cube tray and transfer the cubes to an airtight container once they are solid.
Store for up to 3 months and thaw in the refrigerator overnight once you’re ready to use!
If you like this recipe, you may be interested in these popular recipes that use buttermilk:
- The Most Amazing Chocolate Cake
- Buttermilk Corn Bread Muffins
- Cajun Fried Chicken Strips
- Disneyland Style Hand Dipped Corn Dogs
Thanks for this buttermilk subs. here in the Philippines buttermilk is not always available in the grocery store and if so it is very costly. appreciate so much. More power
Beautiful, easy to follow instructions
This is SO useful thanks. In the UK it is often difficult to get buttermilk so to have all the options available for substitutes at hand is a great idea!
Buttermilk is widely available in the majority of supermarkets in the UK; Sainsbury’s, Morrison’s, Tesco, Waitrose, Asda…..
Thank you for sharing your ingredients particularly on any substitute ingredient. This is my first time to i bake a cake and I’m not familiar to those ingredients.
WHat is a good subtitute for someone who can’t have milk. Can I use coconut milk and lemon juice or vinegar
You can use soy or almond milk.
I have used oatmilk
I would just like to say thank you for including the setup time for substitute buttermilk combinations. There are many recipes with the exact same or similar substitutions but they don’t say how long to wait or if I should refrigerate the combo while I’m waiting or if it’s ok to leave it out in room temperature. Unfortunately, my substitution did not get thick or lumpy. I used whole milk and the lemon juice from the bottle not a fresh and my setup time was 10 minutes. I don’t know which of those failed. But I will be trying again in the future.
Thanks for the great tips.
You must use fresh lemon not the bottled juice
Thanks, Rachel. There is no buttermilk where I live in Ecuador. I knew about lemon juice and vinegar but not the third possibility as a substitute.
I have set the goal to narrow down my recipe collection by selecting just one recipe that is the winner in each category. This looks like the replacement for all chocolate cake recipes I have filed. It feels liberating to declutter in that way.
I appreciate your recipes and clear instructions. Always very generous of you.
Hi Elaine:
Probably you won’t find it by the name of Buttermilk, but look for Kumis. That is the translation for buttermilk in Spanish.
Two years later when I saw your reply, Fabiola. Thank you!
Use 50% low fat yoghurt and 50% skim milk. I am a chef this is what we use. Is has a similar acidity and consistency
Thank you, Justin. I will have to scout for the 50% ers in the small city where I live. So good to know.
I, too, live in Ecuador! Super happy to find this, thanks.
I also live in Ecuador! Going to try this out.
Greetings from Macas, Marla.
Can I use half and half instead of milk for making buttermilk substitute? Thanks!
We don’t recommend that because half and half contains cream, while buttermilk is a cream byproduct.
Can I use sour cream instead of the buttermilk?
That would depend on the recipe, it may or may not be an acceptable substitute.
Buttermilk powder is a great option. It keeps in your pantry or fridge for a long time so you can always have buttermilk on hand. I think it makes a nicer crumb than milk soured with lemon or vinegar. According to the brand I buy (Saco), it’s 3-4 TBS powder plus one cup of water to make a cup of buttermilk. The directions also recommend not mixing the water and powder together — it comes out lumpy. Yes, I tried it. A better way to use powdered buttermilk in baking is to add the powder to the dry ingredients and then add the water to your liquid ingredients. Kefir also makes a good buttermilk substitute.
5hanks so much Denise, This was very helpful. I also appreciate knowing that I can use Kefir as i always have it, i make my own. Could i use whole milk yogurt mixed with water? Thanks again!
Mary Lou
How do you make your own kefir? Would you mind sharing detailed instructions?
You would need kefir grains, usually obtained from others making kefir (or store bought grains, but they are less effective, sometimes only usable once for some reason). The grains are lumps of different bacteria and spores that feed of the sugars in the milk, and a side effect is that the milk becomes thick and sour. You can get a lot of info online! The original grains comes from Siberia – other ones are babies from those. As far as I have understood. Good luck!
THANK YOU DENISE!!! I have Bob’s Red Mill buttermilk powder and the only direction given is how to make a quart of buttermilk and I made the quart and it spoiled before I could use it all. It did mix with water with no problem but I like it the way you suggested. Again, Thank you. The powder has been just sitting in my cabinet unused.
Thanks for sharing this great info!!
I use Saco, too!! I keep it in the refrigerator along with my Nido powdered milk. It’s a GREAT product! I don’t go for the vinegar/lemon juice/cream of tartar methods. Those are too artificial for me!!!