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The many uses for sour raw milk at home which, unlike pasteurized milk, does not go putrid, but naturally ferments into probiotic clabber.
One of the most frequent questions I get from readers is what to do with naturally soured milk, also called clabber.
Sour raw milk is quite unlike pasteurized milk that has gone past its “use by” date. Pasteurized milk goes putrid and must be thrown out at that point, but raw milk is still a highly useful item in the kitchen.
The difference is that pasteurized milk is quite literally a dead food. In other words, there are no enzymes or probiotics present. So, when store milk goes bad, it becomes a huge foodborne illness risk to consume it and it must be discarded.
Sour Raw Milk is Safe
Raw milk, on the other hand, is loaded with enzymes and probiotics. When raw milk starts to sour, it simply means that beneficial bacteria called probiotics have started to use up the lactose (milk sugar) which causes the milk to no longer taste as sweet.
Raw milk that tastes sour is still very much safe to drink and is even more beneficial to health as the higher level of probiotics initiates the fermentation or clabbering of the milk.
So if you find yourself with some soured raw milk in the refrigerator, check through this list and see what makes the most sense for using it up. It doesn’t have to be raw cow milk either. Any type of unpasteurized milk will do including sheep’s milk, goat milk, camel milk, and even water buffalo milk!
Whatever you do, though, don’t throw it out! There is no need for even a drop of your nutrient-dense, grass-fed dairy to go to waste!
There are so many uses for the clabber itself as well as the raw liquid whey separated from it.
Uses for Sour Milk (Clabber)
1. Make scrambled eggs with it.
2. Whip up a pan of quiche with it.
3. Add it to a breakfast smoothie.
4. Make homemade pudding with it (if slightly soured).
5. Make hot chocolate with it.
6. Use it for garden fertilizer (just pour around the base of your plants or trees). It really gets the worms going crazy.
7. Give it to your pet. Cats love it!
8. Make egg custard pudding with it.
9. Make this traditional British white sauce recipe with it.
10. Ferment homemade kefir with it.
11. Make yogurt with it.
12. Blend with flour to soak pancake batter.
13. Use it to soak cold breakfast cereal batter.
14. Use it to soak waffle batter.
15. Remove the soured cream off the top and add to homemade soups.
16. Remove the sour cream off the top and add to meatloaf.
17. Just drink it. It tastes like buttermilk and is very good for you.
18. Use to make devil’s food cake.
19. Make omelets with it.
20. Use it instead of water to cook up your soaked breakfast oatmeal.
21. Use it to soak crepe batter.
22. Soak banana bread batter with it.
23. Soak pumpkin bread batter with it.
24. Use it to soak buttermilk biscuit batter.
25. Soak muffin batter (any kind) with it.
26. Separate the liquid whey from the clabber.
27. Remove the sour cream off the top and add to a baked potato.
28. Add buttermilk culture and make buttermilk with it.
29. Take a bath in it. It was good enough for Cleopatra, right?
30. Separate out the liquid whey and make ricotta cheese.
31. Make mozzarella cheese with it.
32. Whip up a pan of flan using it instead of milk.
33. Make sweet potato casserole with the sour cream off the top.
34. Make cottage cheese with it.
35. Use as a base for ice milk (if only slightly soured).
36. Use it instead of evaporated milk to make pumpkin pie.
37. Use it to clear up pinkeye.
38. Soak frozen fish in it until thawed for improved texture and flavor.
39. Soak dull-looking silverware in it for at least 30 minutes and then rinse for a beautiful shine.
40. Use it as a conditioner for your hair. Or, take a bath in it. Remember Cleopatra?
41. Repair fine cracks in your china by boiling them in the soured raw milk (the milk reacts with a chemical in the china to seal the crack). I’ve never done this myself but it supposedly works.
42. Use it ice cold to soothe the discomfort of poison ivy.
43. Dab some on mild sunburn for instant, cooling relief.
44. Rub dry skin patches with it several times a day to make skin soft again.
45. Make cheese sauce for Welsh rarebit with it.
46. Make paneer (easy South Asian cheese that requires no rennet).
47. Make potato cheese soup.
48. Freeze the milk and use it later when you have a dire need for clabbered milk.
49. Make tapioca pudding with it.
50. Make bread pudding (soak the bread in the milk).
Need More Ideas? Let’s Keep Going…
51. Stew pork loin in it.
52. Make no-bake cheesecake with it.
53. Make lassi with it (Indian yogurt-style smoothie).
54. Use it instead of water (or a blend with water) to cook up amaranth porridge.
55. Separate the whey to use as a natural facial toner.
56. Use to cook up teff breakfast porridge.
57. Use blended with water to make cream of buckwheat porridge.
58. Make fermented almond milk.
59. Make homemade orangina soda.
60. Brew some detoxifying beet kvass.
61. Make homemade ginger ale.
62. Add a cup or two of the separated whey to a warm detoxifying bath instead of vinegar.
63. Make fermented lemonade.
64. Use instead of yogurt to make fermented potatoes.
65. Make homemade sauerkraut.
66. Use the separated whey instead of sauerkraut juice to make homemade pickles.
67. Make apricot butter.
68. Make probiotic mango chutney.
69. Use whey instead of raw ACV to make homemade mustard.
70. Use the whey to make fermented corn relish.
71. Blend up some probiotic thousand island dressing using some of the separated whey.
72. Make raw cream cheese.
73. Make fermented cilantro salsa.
74. Use whey to make homemade ketchup.
75. Add the whey to homemade mayo so it lasts three times as long in the fridge.
76. Add separated whey to potassium broth for extra minerals and digestibility.
77. Use to make cultured rice water.
78. Blend some to homemade wild rice milk to add probiotics.
79. Mix a teaspoon into a glass of homemade electrolyte beverage to add more minerals.
80. Use whey separated from clabber instead of kombucha to make a maple dijon salad dressing.
81. Stir a teaspoon of separated whey into homemade barbecue sauce to add probiotics.
82. Use liquid whey instead of raw ACV to make homemade cocktail sauce.
83. Use whey to make fermented salsa.
84. Substitute whey for lemon juice to make homemade steak sauce.
85. Whip up some homemade teriyaki sauce.
86. Add a drizzle of whey to artichoke dip to add probiotics and enhance the flavor.
87. Liquid whey is an important ingredient in hypoallergenic DIY baby formula.
88. Whey from clabber is also a key ingredient in homemade goat milk baby formula.
89. Add a drizzle of whey to sweet potato casserole baby food to add probiotics.
90. Liquid whey separated from clabber (or yogurt) is a key ingredient in homemade baby formula.
91. Use clabber blended with flour to make soaked waffles.
92. Whip up a pan of gluten-free soaked cornbread.
93. Make homemade tomato bisque using the soured milk instead of plain milk.
94. Use it to soak homemade quick oats.
95. Make a pan of Mexican mac & cheese.
96. Use instead of water to cook a pot of whole grain millet.
97. Make a buttermilk-style egg nog with it!
98. If only slightly sour, use it to make a refreshing matcha frappe.
99. Use as a substitute for water in this easy rice cakes recipe.
100. If only slightly sour, use to make a red rooibos latte.
101. Drizzle some into your cup of dandelion coffee if the sourness is very mild.
Do you have more suggestions to add? Please share with us in the comments section!
I’m sure there are literally dozens more uses for soured raw milk and the liquid whey separated from clabber that I’ve missed!
More Information
Organic UHT Milk
A1 vs A2 Milk
Why Skim Milk Makes You Fat
Low Temp (Vat) Pasteurized Milk Compared to Raw
It is not so primal/paleo friendly, but I use it to make macaroni and cheese. It is a family recipe from when I was growing up and I have not yet been able to give it up :-).
My mother (who is NOT into traditional eating methods) uses sour milk to make Chocolate Sour Milk Zuchinni Cake. Not the healthiest either, but I have convinced her of the importance of healthy oils such as coconut, palm and pastured butter!
I also make a Sourdough Chocolate Cake. It is pretty darn good!
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/sourdough-chocolate-cake-recipe
I think you have covered the healthiest and best uses (such as smoothies) so these would definitely be somewhere near 102-104 (on the health scale)!
Enjoy!
Hi, how long will soured milk stay safe to be consumed? I had a whole gallon unopened that I got from before Christmas. Of course I *just* threw it out with the garbage yesterday… For future reference though.. 6 months? A year??
I am wondering the same thing — and thanks for a great post. We’ve been enjoying raw milk for just over three years now from farms around DC and now are in the Tampa area (with two sources).
Thanks for having me understand why I’ve been enjoying our milk after it sours even more than when it is ‘fresh’… good now I know why!
We’re not talking about the junk from the grocery store. This is straight from the cow, never pasteurized or homogenized raw milk. The real thing! I usually use it in cooking when it’s started souring but have just mixed it up with a little chocolate syrup and drank it down too! Hot chocolate is the best! When I started drinking raw milk I was having a terrible time getting candida under control. A few months of drinking a glass a day did the trick and cleared up so many stomach problems for me. It’s also had the wonderful benefit of helping on some of my allergies!
mix with water and use as a foliar spray on your fruit trees.
Great if you have problem with fungal diseases.
BUT – spray after sun has gone down – it it the beneficial milk bacteria that do a lot of the good work, and they get killed by sunlight. So let them do their work in the evening and during the night.
Make facepack with it with clay or ground lentils.
Dulce de leche cortada (sweet curdled milk), just made this for my husband! It does require quite a bit of sugar, but good for an occasional treat 🙂
Seriously? Using soured raw milk? Wow. That’s just. I don’t even know what to say. I wish that you would reconsider, you are seriously going to make someone sick some day.
Did you not read the difference between pasteurized sour milk and raw sour milk? *Raw* sour milk is not dangerous!
Additionally, there are many widely-accepted forms of soured milk products out there– yogurt, sour cream, various cheeses.
Mimi, I forgot to mention that yogurt is preheated to a temperature much higher than that needed to pasteurize before incubating the yogurt bacteria.
No. Raw yogurt is NOT heated to high temps 🙂 I have made mine without heating to more thatn 100 degrees F, and it always turns out perfect. Keep reading Sarah’s blog- she has lots of info on raw milk that you might not know…
Melissa, I’d be glad to. And I hope y’all will be putting up with my comments.
Tell me, how exactly do you make your yogurt? Do you thicken it with milk powder? If so do you know that powdered milk is heated to substantially higher temperatures than what is required to pasteurize milk, and that it actually oxidizes the cholesterol making it far more unsafe for you?
I too make raw yogurt all the time without ever heating my milk before hand. I never add powdered milk (ick), just plain raw milk (slightly soured fine) and some yogurt from my previous batch. Pop it in my yogurt maker for 24 hours and it’s done!
Thank you Melissa tha’s is what I do too, but I wasn’t sure,love this website
Not if it is organic and pastured. I drink it for 37 years and yet to see a problem
My Daddy told me that they used to put the leftover cow’s milk in a butter churn kept next to the fireplace…they kept adding to it each day and by the end of the week it all clabbered (is that the same as cultured?) up real well so they could churn the butter.
This was only 50 to 607 years ago and my Grandma raised six kids to full grown.
Some folks need to do a little research on the old ways of doing things before they go commented on things they don’t know nothing about.
As for my poor grammer really I just though the tone matched the message. 🙂
Oh shoot I *always* spell grammar wrong.
Actually I have done the research. Please do not insult me. I am very concerned about raw milk, as I do know children who’ve gotten deathly ill from consuming it. It is a very serious issue and people tend to make light of it or insult anyone who has concerns about it.
Personally I think the numbers of people who are damaging their immune systems by drinking pasturized milk is much more serious than the reports of people claiminig they were sick from raw milk.
I weaned my son onto raw milk as folks have been doing for aeons. He is one of the healthiest kids you’ve ever seen. Also I myself get horrible joint pain whenever I drink pasteurized milk. But I never have a problem when I drink raw milk which only makes me feel great. My mother in law is the one who told me about raw milk. When she first told me about it I told her she was CRAZY. 🙂 My Suburban Homestead our Amish farmer sold me this book and it really helped me to see the light and my family has benefited ever since: http://www.westonaprice.org/thumbs-up-reviews/untold-story-of-milk
The milk is as healthy as the cow it comes from. If you get your milk from a reputable farm with healthy cows, your milk will be fine and you really have nothing to worry about.
“Children who have gotten deathly ill from consuming it”
And children have also gotten deathly ill from peanut butter, spinach, and many other CONTAMINATED foods. That’s what you’re missing here – raw milk is safe unless CONTAMINATED, just like almost EVERY food. It’s safe until it has been contaminated.
When properly handled and stored it is as safe / dangerous as any other food. When improperly handled, it is also as safe / dangerous as any other food. You can not compare the “safety” of any food based on CONTAMINATION. That makes no sense at all.
Mimi–says who? The same folks who write the pro-raw arguments? Have you actually sat down to read the literature they present? I have. It is a gross, deliberate misinterpretation of scientific literature.
Anna–that’s like saying since you smoke and haven’t gotten lung cancer, you won’t get it. That’s just not true and its unfortunate that many families have had to figure this out the hard way.
Sure it is. And I really dislike arguing. But the fact is that organic grass fed raw milk is one of the wholyiest, most nutritious and safest foods there is and human beings have been consuming it for centuries. On the other hand if you are concerned that much just don’t drink it. Full stop.
I guess my grandma who’s been making buttermilk for ages, without cultures, has just been killing us all along [rolls eyes]
There is a HUGE difference between pastured RAW milk from cows that are treated with respect from a clean farm and dairy cows in a confinement farm/conventional farm. I strongly urge you to do some more research on RAW milk and pasteurization in general. I know where my milk comes from and which herd of cows, buying from a store you have no idea. Not to mention most people that do get sick form milk have gotten sick from pasteurized milk not RAW.
You’re right, there is a difference. Note that I did not mention buying milk at the store. I HAVE done the research. I’ve read through the articles presented by the pro raw milkers, and found that their interpretation of what the literature says is actually entirely different than what the author intended.
So what type of milk do you have, A1 or A2? What kind of cow? What is the diet? What is the temp of the milk on the way home? What is the temp of your fridge? Do you shake the milk every other day if it sits? There are so many questions you need to answer to determine if raw milk is safe to drink….
I would NEVER drink raw milk from an A1 Holstein cow that was fed grain. EVER!!!
Wait, you’re rolling your eyes at me? How rude. Do you also roll your eyes at the children who are in the hospital with Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome and need kidney transplants because they drank raw milk?
The chance of getting foodborne illness from ANY OTHER food besides raw milk is about 35,000X greater. Please do your research. Raw milk is one of the safest foods you could ever consume.
Per the CDC:
https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/government-data-proves-raw-milk-is-safe/
Um, that is not per the CDC, that is pointing again to a misinterpretation of the literature provided by the CDC. Here is the actual information provided by the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/raw-milk-index.html
It is CDC data therefore it is per the CDC. It is not misinterpretation. At the recent Harvard debate, the folks on the anti-raw milk side of the issue had absolutely no rebuttal to this data from the CDC that raw milk is so inherently safe. If it was a misinterpretation, it would have been skewered in this debate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLRdihFi6gw&context=C3280be7ADOEgsToPDskKldOT0LgeJ9pGStYY2P77G
I won’t have time to sit through this 1.5 hour panel that you presented, but I will at some point. I think it will be interesting.
I still don’t understand your article… maybe you could break it down to me. Raw milk is safe because the CDC says_______________________________??
I am assuming that you mean to say that pathogen outbreaks are typically attributed to other food sources. But that is a far cry from saying that raw milk is safe.
As I stated before, I’ve already been through the Weston Price website and found that their information was entirely false and purposefully misleading. I’m not interested in going through their articles again because I already know that they aren’t honest. If you have another source you can point me to, I would certainly be glad to read through it.
” Hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS) often occurs after a gastrointestinal infection with E. coli bacteria (Escherichia coli O157:H7). However, the condition has also been linked to other gastrointestinal infections, including shigella and salmonella , as well as non-gastrointestinal infections.
HUS is most common in children. It was once very rare, but it is increasing in children. It is the most common cause of acute kidney failure in children. Several large outbreaks in 1992 and 1993 were linked to undercooked hamburger meat contaminated with E. coli.”
………………………………………………………………
My suburban homestead, you do realize that no one is having the cow rub its udders in e-coli ridden manure, for one the dont stack ‘poo’ that high, and for 2 every place I have gone to have gently yet throughly cleaned before and after milking, have the animals on a well diet the animals show no sign of disease and have had thier manure tested for such pathagens. BTW my ( at the time) one year old got salmonella from PEANUT BUTTER and it was almost fatal to her but you dont see me going around bashing peanut butter eaters. I do have a very good knowledge of pathagens due to my childs sickness and due to the fact my husband owns and operates a USDA FDA enspected whole sale smoked meats plant (small scale) . we do testing on a daily basis and in such have a good understanding of what leads to ecoli and such. and speaking of USDA the farm I get MY raw milk from is indeed USDA inspected so I have no fear in allowing my family to drink this truelly natural product. Do come and tell us how YOU bones are holding up in 25 years though I’m sure we would like to get a report on that 😉
Many old cookbooks have sour milk as an ingredient. (As opposed to “sweet milk.”) It’s a staple in many Eastern European dishes.
My parents and even my generation in Slovakia grew up on soured milk as did generations, and generations prior, naturally. My mom said she had it for dinner with potatoes every night. Now that milk in a box that lasts, um, years! is popular along with other junk and processed foods (in Slovakia) and people don’t consume raw milk and other real food as much as they used to, people are getting sicker, diabetes, heart-disease and cancer are up :o(.
You mentioned pets, and I saw ducks and geese above – but what about chickens?
Old time farmers used raw milk to prevent coccidiosis, and chickens prefer it soured until it’s clabbored, but they love it even fresh.
Also, when dumping it on your garden: dilute 4 to 1 w/ water to get the biggest benefit. It selectively feeds the microscopic soil critters and leads to higher brix (sweetness) in plants – fruits, veggies, grain and pasture alike.
If you are farming, you probably already know that the high level of lysine makes it a wonderful food for pigs, too, especially pigs raised on pasture.
10 minutes too late…I just discarded 2 quart jars of sour milk! If only I checked my emails I would have read your wonderful article. Next time I’ll know what to do!
I love giving clabbered milk to my chickens!