Buttermilk

Making buttermilk is super easy! You do need to start with a buttermilk culture from the store. Buy the smallest size container of buttermilk from the store. Pour 1/2 cup of the cultured buttermilk in a jar, fill it up the rest of the way with milk. Leave it out over night on the counter to culture all the milk. You now have buttermilk! Now you can use it or refrigerate it. I like to have 2 quart jars available in my refrigerator because I use it all the time! When one jar starts to get low from making pancakes, biscuits, muffins or anything else, I just fill it up again with regular milk and leave it out over night. Just be sure that you always leave about 1/2 cup of the start/culture in the jar before adding the milk. You can do it with dry milk that is reconstituted, 1%, 2%, or whole milk. Of course wash your jar every couple of times too!

                        The jar on the left has buttermilk. The jar on the right is the regular milk.

Now the jar on the left has the milk added to it and I will leave it out overnight to culture all the milk into buttermilk. This is so easy! Give it a try and see what you think. It is so fun the next morning to see how thick and creamy it is! You will love to make all your favorite buttermilk recipes with buttermilk that you have cultured yourself! Some recipes to try are: buttermilk pancakes, waffles, biscuits, buttermilk syrup (see my recipe), buttermilk scones (recipe to follow soon), buttermilk garlic mashed potatoes, homemade buttermilk ranch dressing, muffins, cornbread, buttermilk fried chicken is amazing, and don't forget desserts with buttermilk caramel, etc. Now you will never need to make fake buttermilk with lemon juice or vinegar again!