Substitution for BUTTERMILK

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There are many times that I find myself looking at a recipe saying, “Man, if only I had…, I could make that recipe.”

Tell me I’m not alone.  There are others out there, right?  Right?

The most common thing I find is I don’t have buttermilk.  I know, you would think I run across it in a recipe enough times that I would put it on my “must have for the kitchen” list, right?  You’d be thinking wrong. 

I just can’t seem to force myself to buy buttermilk; I don’t know why.  Maybe because I really don’t want to drink it and if it’s for only one purpose or one use and not for eating, I really struggle with buying it.

I know, my logic doesn’t work.

I HAVE found, however, that there are ways around the buttermilk issue…make a substitute.

Now, I wouldn’t use this method if I were using a recipe like salad dressing, it wouldn’t work too well (please don’t ask me about the time I discovered this through experience).  However, in things like pancakes (a recipe that you will be seeing soon…maybe even tomorrow, you’ll just have to tune in to find out), or cakes or cookies, etc… the substitute works out wonderfully!

Want to know how to substitute when you don’t have any buttermilk?

First, measure out 1 cup of milk:

Take a fresh lemon:

What?  You don’t have a fresh lemon?  That’s okay, I’ve used lemon juice from a bottle before and it worked just fine. 

Roll your lemon a bit to get the juices flowing before you cut into it, cut it in half:

Squeeze 1 Tablespoon lemon juice into the milk:

Oh, you don’t think I can eyeball that, do you?  Yeah, I can’t do that.  I took out a measuring spoon:

So, mix in the lemon juice and then just let it sit for at least 5 minutes.

It should thicken up a bit and then be ready to use.

Use it in any recipe that calls for buttermilk, but especially recipes where buttermilk is not the main flavor.

What other substitutions would you like to know about?