An easy Buttermilk Substitute recipe and a guide for How to Make Buttermilk including dairy free and vegan buttermilk.

We’ve all been in the middle of making a recipe when we realized we didn’t have buttermilk on hand! Luckily, making your own buttermilk is so easy and only requires two simple ingredients.  If your looking for ways to use your buttermilk (or buttermilk substitute), try these perfect buttermilk pancakes, biscuits, or my favorite Hershey’s “perfectly chocolate” Chocolate Cake.

How to make buttermilk - tastesbetterfromscratch.com

Buttermilk Substitute

Tell me I am not the only person who seems to constantly forget to add buttermilk to my shopping list.  It’s one of those ingredients that seems to go bad in my fridge when I do buy it and is never around in the moments I need it!  It’s almost embarrassing how often I have to use this buttermilk substitute recipe.  You’ll likely have this easy recipe memorized after just one use.

What can I use if I don’t have buttermilk?

There are a few popular methods for substituting buttermilk.  Pick which one is best for you, based on what you have on hand:

  • 1 cup buttermilk = 1 Tablespoon white vinegar + enough milk to measure 1 cup
  • 1 cup buttermilk = 1 Tablespoon lemon juice + enough milk to measure 1 cup
  • 1 cup buttermilk = 1 cup plain yogurt
  • 1 cup buttermilk = 1 and ¾ teaspoon cream of tarter + 1 cup of milk
How to substitute Buttermilk

The simplest way to substitute buttermilk is to pour 1 Tbs. of vinegar into a 1 cup measurer and then fill the rest of the measuring cup with milk.  Then gently stir the mixture and let it sit for about 5 minutes.

If you don’t have vinegar, lemon juice and cream of tarter also work as great buttermilk substitutions.  Use them in the same way described above.

Three photos for making a buttermilk substitution with milk and vinegar, milk and lemon juice, and milk and cream of tarter.

Dairy free buttermilk substitution:

If you have a dairy allergy you can also use this buttermilk substitute recipe with a small adaptation.  Instead of using 1 cup of milk, use coconut milk! So add vinegar or lemon juice to a 1 cup measurer and then fill the rest of the measuring cup with coconut milk. Voila!  I dairy-free buttermilk substitute.

Vegan buttermilk substitution:

If you are vegan, you can use the dairy-free substitute described above or you can also use soy milk!  To use soy-milk as a vegan buttermilk substitute, simple add 1 tablespoon of vinegar (or lemon juice) to a 1 cup measurer and fill the rest of the cup with soy milk.  Allow it to sit for about 5 minutes before using.

Can you freeze buttermilk?

Yes!  Buttermilk freezes well.  Just be sure to store it in a sealed container and it will last in the freezer for up to 3 months.  You can also freeze buttermilk by using and ice cube tray and freezing it in 1 tablespoon portions!  This makes it really convenient when you need to use just a small amount.

Homemade buttermilk being poured from a liquid measuring cup into a clear glass bowl.

More buttermilk recipes:

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Recipe

How to make buttermilk - tastesbetterfromscratch.com
Prep 3 minutes
Total 3 minutes
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Ingredients
  

  • 1 Tablespoon white vinegar (or lemon juice)
  • 1 cup milk (scant cup)

Instructions
 

  • Pour the tablespoon of vinegar into a 1 cup measurer.  
  • Fill the rest of the 1 cup measurer with milk. 
  • Gently stir and let the mixture sit for about 5 minutes. This will allow the milk to slightly curdle, giving it a buttermilk-like texture and taste.

Notes

You can also use cream of tartar and milk as a buttermilk substitute, or substitute plain yogurt for buttermilk. Read more in the post above.

Nutrition

Calories: 151kcalCarbohydrates: 11gProtein: 7gFat: 7gSaturated Fat: 4gCholesterol: 24mgSodium: 105mgPotassium: 322mgSugar: 12gVitamin A: 395IUCalcium: 276mg

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Lauren Allen

Welcome! I’m Lauren, a mom of four and lover of good food. Here you’ll find easy recipes and weeknight meal ideas made with real ingredients, with step-by-step photos and videos.

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Comments

  1. 5 stars
    Fabulous and thank you, we do not tend to use buttermilk in the UK and it is very difficult to find when a recipe calls for it. l can now make my own.

  2. Any other way I can measure the vinegar and the milk without having a big measuring cup! Help lol thanks!

    1. There are 16 tablespoons (TBS) in 1 cup, since the recipe stated put one TBS and then full the 1 cup, that means 1 TBS vinegar or lemon and 15 TBS of milk. If you don’t have a TBS use any spoon but and 1 vinegar and 15 milk .

  3. I drink it, actually, though I only buy it when it’s for a recipe. I drink the leftover buttermilk and love it!

  4. For a buttermilk substitute, sounds like literally buttermilk while leaving the curds in lmao 🤣 (here for the ratios since i forgot how simple it was 1;1, haven’t made cheese in a while…..)

    That’s not a substitute that’s the literal buttermilk recipe is my only point….

  5. My mom taught me this but I forgot. I now keep a carton of cultured buttermilk blend in my freezer. No waste.

  6. 5 stars
    This is ages old and such a great hack! I remember my great grandmother, grandmother and mom using this for ‘all things buttermilk!!
    Such a great tip to pass along.
    I don’t know about anyone else- but I cannot stand buttermilk! I was always throwing a whole carton out bc no one in my family would drink it. But, they all demanded buttermilk chicken, pork chops and biscuits! (Also awesome to use for Buttermilk crumbles, pies and cakes!
    Best kitchen hack since the pepper mill!

    1. 4 stars
      You don’t DRINK buttermilk: you put it in a bowl and top it with lots OF CINNAMON SUGAR. Other than that it’s for baking and cooking.
      Linda

      1. Some people actually do drink buttermilk. I know lots of people who love it. My dad loved it with a bit of salt and pepper.

  7. If you’re a baker, you likely have cream in your refridgerator. You can also take a pint of high fat heavy whipping cream and shake in in a mason jar until the butter forms. What is left, is your true buttermilk.

  8. You wrote “The simplest way to substitute buttermilk is to pour 1 Tbs. of vinegar into a 1 cup measurer and then fill the rest of the measuring cup with milk. ” One should NEVER add an acid, which vinegar is, to an empty container. It can splash out when the next ingredient is added, possibly into eyes. Suggest adding three quarters of the milk first, then the vinegar, stir to distribute the vinegar, and then add the rest of the milk up to the measure mark.

    1. I’m not sure about others, but I never pour an ingredient in measuring quickly enough to splash out. It seems to be I’d be likely to miss my measurement mark.

    2. Probably safest to just keep the vinegar locked away & not use such a strong acid at all, Dorothy. Better yet, not in the house at all. Risks outweigh benefits by far on this one.

    3. I, too, activate a vent hood and contact hazmat while opening jars of pickles. The risk is just too great when dealing with the chemical weapon that is white vinegar.

        1. Now I’m here just for the comments!! Altho I really did need the buttermilk substitute. I’m going to be a risk taker today and choose the vinegar option. Live on the edge a lil bit.

  9. Hi, I made a recipe of the buttermilk with vinegar and worked great, just wanted to know how mucho would it last on the fridge?
    Thanks

  10. Loved the recipe, I made chicken livers ànd onion rings both soaked in buttermilk recipe you posted. Thank you.

  11. Hi, I just wanted to say that I recommend using lemon juice over vinegar, for the best results. I don’t think many people know this, but in India (I’m an Indian) we actually drink buttermilk, and we use lemon, and never vinegar. This recipe is quite different from the drink that we have in India, because it is made of milk and vinegar/lemon juice, but we generally make it using water, yogurt, and lemon, and sometimes we add in spices and/or herbs to it, and there are different variations. Although I think this recipe would work out well for buttermilk, I think that if you are drinking it you should use lemon juice in water and yogurt. Also, this recipe and mine both work for recipes, as I often use Indian buttermilk when frying chicken, making pancakes, etc. Altogether, if you are drinking buttermilk, you should try the Indian way, but if cooking something, either way should work. Just a tip 🙂

    – Cookie

  12. In this recipe you call for a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice with a cup of milk. In your Hershey’s chocolate cake recipe you call for a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice and a cup of milk to make buttermilk. Which is it?

    1. I double checked the Hershey’s Chocolate Cake recipe and only see it saying 1 Tbps vinegar of lemon juice. Can you tell me where you see that? You want to use 1 tablespoon to 1 cup of milk.

  13. 5 stars
    I’ve made this for many years as I have a milk allergy, and so I use a milk substitute to make my buttermilk. It helps if the milk is a little warm first. A warm kitchen will make it thicken faster. If I let it set for a few hours, I’ll have the equivalent of a soft sour cream, which I can use on Tacos, etc.

  14. 5 stars
    Made this dozens of times with great results. Oddly enough this time it failed to cuddle the milk in any way. It’s like the lemon juice is staying separate from the whole milk. Any idea why it failed? Even letting it sit overnight; then, in desperation, adding more lemon juice didn’t work. It was fresh milk and I always measure instead of eyeballing. Any way of still fixing this, like mixing some sour cream or heavy cream?

  15. What a waste!!!! Made this so I could make cornbread. It was awful!!!! Threw away the entire batch of cornbread. It was inedible!

  16. I didn’t have enough buttermilk on hand so I used this recipe to make more buttermilk. This worked out great! Look just like carton buttermilk.

  17. I’ve used this recipe before and it turned out to be good buttermilk. Tonight I used whole milk and lemon juice but it never became anything but lemon flavored milk! I started over using whole milk and white vinegar. Again, it never became buttermilk. The whole milk was new. What could have caused my problem?

  18. I made the buttermilk and it was great for my home made biscuits my boyfriend loved them thanks a million

  19. Thank You the butter milk was great from scratch. Now do you have one for making Chicken Fried Steak. Diana Troxell

  20. 5 stars
    This recipe saved me a trip to the grocery store when I wanted to make muffins. It’s just as good as store-bought. Thank you!

  21. 5 stars
    Almond milk didn’t work for me as I later found out as it doesn’t have enough protein to interact with the white vinegar.

    But, soy milk works great; just be sure it is unsweetened soy milk.

  22. I don’t go through enough buttermilk to justify buying it so I always use this substitute recipe instead. My recipes needing buttermilk come out perfect.

    1. Thank you so much, Mike for saying this. You wonder if a substitute will work. Because you go through making the cake and it just did not come out good, ya know? At least, I have a vouch from someone. Thanks. :):):)

  23. 5 stars
    Hello and thank you! 😭
    I wish to know if you can use this result to prepare Crème Fraîche.
    Thanks in advance!

  24. 5 stars
    Delicious recipe! I have Celiac Disease and substituted a gluten free flour blend for the 2 cup regular flour without any trouble. My entire family wants this on our regular recipe rotation.

    1. Use the yogurt instead of buttermilk. But if your cooking with it expect the probiotics to die off anyways. This is also true with commercial saurkraut its pasteurized leaving little to no bacteria left. Home fermentation all the way.

  25. This might be a no-brainer, but, can I make the buttermilk substitute a few hours ahead so it’s ready when I throw my cornbread together?
    Thank you!!

  26. What happened to the actual cake recipe? Got dozens of ways to make buttermilk, scanned to the end of the article, and WHAT??:? no yellow cake recipe!

  27. Out of the 4 different way of making buttermilk which one is best for baking because I have vinegar, lemon juice and cream of tart?? Because of taste? Thanks Josie

  28. 5 stars
    I sure did!! No need to purchase buttermilk anymore!! I also used 3 day old milk #nowastethere !!!

    Thank u!!

  29. Thank you.
    A caution…
    The taste of the yoghurt substitute might be similar to buttermilk but the consistency will be different. One will end up with a drier batter and drier baked goods.
    I’ve tried both lemon juice and vinegar. The lemon juice definitely thickened/curdled the milk more. Lemons are about 10x more acidic. (Even though they are only about 1 digit different on the pH scale, the pH scale is logarithmic, meaning a factor of 10, 2 digits would be a factor of 100, etc)
    Thirdly, the lemon juice and vinegar methods will impart different flavours to the end product, …different from buttermilk and different from each other.

  30. 4 stars
    I didn’t have any fresh milk, so I used evaporated milk from the can and added the white vinegar. It worked very well. Thank your for this recipe as I cannot get buttermilk in my area. Also I have heard that it is quite pricey!

  31. 5 stars
    This worked well for us in a pancake recipe and added to our smashed potatoes. I’m seeing folks successfully freeze store purchased buttermilk and I am wondering if anyone has had success in freezing this “homemade” version.
    Thank you!

  32. 5 stars
    Which one of these tastes true-est to buttermilk? Why not add a bit of (melted?) butter and maybe cream or halfnhalf too? My buttermilk usually has chunks of butter floating around in it; can’t imagine it would taste the same without it…

    1. Buttermilk doesn’t actually contain butter. It’s a by-product from the production of butter. When you whip cream, it will eventually separate into curds (butter) and whey (buttermilk)

  33. 5 stars
    This was a big help n a pinch. I also take my leftover (store bought) buttermilk and pour it into measuring cup. I then pour it evenly into an ice tray. I write on the freezer bag how many cubes I need for a 1/4 or 1/2 cup so I can just thaw what I need for my recipe. This method works great for all sorts of liquids. It’s a simple way to save a few $ and a trip to the store.

  34. 5 stars
    Delicious! I was a little hesitant to make biscuits, but these are so easy and so good! I grated unsalted butter that I had stored in my freezer and it worked perfectly. They puffed up very nicely. Thank you!

  35. This doesn’t even remotely taste of ranch. I feel lied to.
    Has anyone else who left a comment tasted ranch recently? Because this is weird savory milk product

    1. This ISN’T a recipe for Ranch dressing my friend. It’s a recipe to make BUTTERMILK if you cant find it at a store. There are really great recipes using this recipe of buttermilk if you are either out of buttermilk or can’t get it locally.

  36. 5 stars
    Thank you!! I live in Hawaii, in a VERY rural area and a major store is 50 minutes away (one way). On top of that, EVERY store I went to today was out of buttermilk (Safeway, KTA, Target, Walmart). It happens SO MUCH it drives me crazy and I need to just not worry about it and find another way to deal with these outages. I love making buttermilk biscuits but have been very discouraged. I live almost a mile up so it’s cold and rainy quite often. I love biscuits.

    1. 5 stars
      Jodi, to have buttermilk in a pinch there are two dry forms I have used in recipes. Walmart carries “Saco Buttermilk” that comes in a small (12 oz) canister. However, my favorite is “Bob’s Red Mill Sweet Cream Buttermilk”, it comes in a plastic pouch, and I order it online. I mainly buy dry buttermilk to make ranch seasoning from scratch.

      1. I just wanted to say thank you for this! I don’t use buttermilk very much and it never occurred to me to buy powdered buttermilk so that I can have it when I need it and nothing will go to waste.

    2. Jodi,
      So jealous you live in Hawaii my husband and I miss Hawaii so much. I love the lemon and milk way of making buttermilk.

  37. 5 stars
    So simple and smart. I’ve lost count on how many times I needed buttermilk and had none! I have used all 3 options and I must say the vinegar works best for me taste wise!

  38. 5 stars
    Clearly explained! Thank you for posting this info: I’m in New Zealand, and a fan of ‘American regional cooking’… The term “Buttermilk” turns up regularly in recipes – and now I know how to replicate it! Cheers

  39. I didn’t know how to make butter milk yet I wanted to use it during cooking. Now I’ve got it.
    Thank you. Sarah, Uganda

  40. This was a life save because I had just run out and needed it for a cobbler I was making!! Do you know how long it can be stored for in the refrigerator?

  41. 5 stars
    Thank you Lauren, I made corn dogs for my hubby last night and the recipe called for buttermilk. I found your buttermilk recipe right away with great reviews so I went with it. My hubby enjoyed the corn dogs and wants me to make them again soon. Thank you for posting this for us. 😁

  42. I just love to drink buttermilk. I am always picking up a quart when wife isn’t looking. It never lasts for more than a few hours. My Dad loved it too. My brother can’t stand it at all. He even tried to like it to be like my dad but failed. I wish there was a way to get the butter chunks in. By the way, if you get a really sore throat, try drinking lots of cold buttermilk and your sore throat will be finished.

  43. 5 stars
    I’m almost a 70 year old male. Never baked before. I’m trying different recipes to replicate my mam’s baking when I was a teenager. The buttermilk substitute is a god send. Thank you. John.

  44. very pleased to have found your buttermilk recipe. shop-bought cartoons just contain too much quantity for my use.
    thank you!

  45. 5 stars
    I have been using your suggestions for making buttermilk. Thank you for saving me. I never have buttermilk when I need it.

  46. Where I live, the only kind of butter milk available anywhere is cultured non-fat butter milk. I have found that a cup of sour cream is a great subs for butter milk. My cakes come out moist and delicious when I use sour cream.

  47. Store-bought buttermilk will last for three or four months in the refrigerator. Pay no attention to the expiration date on the bottle. Thanks My only suggestion Is to shake before using. It tends to separate and shaking it restores to the way it should be.

        1. My great uncle, would pour a cup of buttermilk and crumble cornbread in it. Of course he was raised in the south and picked cotton, they made the best of what was available being poor. He loved it.

          1. I love buttermilk in the summer it is just refreshing and I also crumble some cornbread in it.

  48. Hi
    I use buttermilk for the enzymes to tenderize my chicken before I cook it. If I make buttermilk by combining milk and vinegar will that still tenderize my chicken?

  49. Hi Lauren
    Can I make the milk and vinegar mixture the night before or is it best not to store?
    Thanks!

  50. Has anyone tried any other nut, seed, grain milks that aren’t coconut? Would say almond, cashew, or oat milk work? I’m severely allergic to coconut in an any form, and I don’t use soy of any kind.

  51. Would the coconut milk cause a coconut taste? I’m going to make banana bread and curious if it’ll give the bread a coconut taste.