What is your opinion of dried buttermilk for cooking?

 What’s with the sudden assault on buttermilk? In the past week we’ve gotten more questions on freezing it, substituting it, and avoiding it than we’ve gotten in the past year!

Commercially produced liquid buttermilk is one of the most stable dairy products you can buy, certainly good for a couple of weeks after the sell-by date (we often use it well over a month later, but that’s just us). I think we would all appreciate being able to purchase it in smaller amounts (dairy producers, are you listening? ), because there is always some left over, which quietly moves to the back of the refrigerator and is forgotten.

But, back to your question, buttermilk powder is great. Lots of recipes call for it specifically, and we occasionally use it as a substitute for fresh buttermilk. It is especially useful in the delay cycle of a bread machine, where you wouldn’t necessarily want liquid buttermilk waiting with the other ingredients for hours and hours until the cycle starts.

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