Keeping a family milk cow (or dairy goats) is a wonderful way to increase the sustainability of your homestead and the quality of food your family consumes. However, you can quickly become overrun with excess milk if you don’t know how to utilize the milk that you are not able to drink fresh. In this post, you will see a curated list of recipes that you can make with raw milk.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Raw milk from a family dairy cow or local producer can be transformed into over a dozen different dairy products including butter, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream to prevent waste and maximize homestead resources.
- Cultured butter and raw milk yogurt contain beneficial probiotics that support gut health due to the fermentation process involving mesophilic bacteria cultures.
- Buttermilk produced as a byproduct of butter-making can be used in multiple recipes including ranch dressing, cornbread, biscuits, and pancakes, or consumed as a tangy beverage.
- Excess raw milk that cannot be processed in the kitchen serves as valuable livestock feed, particularly beneficial for pigs on the homestead.
- Pasteurized store-bought milk can substitute for raw milk in most of these recipes when access to raw milk is limited or unavailable.
Maximizing Every Drop Through Sequential Processing
Most homesteaders process excess milk into single products, but the most efficient approach treats milk as the starting point of a cascade where each product creates another valuable ingredient.
The Complete Cascade Process:
Stage 1: Separation
Raw milk naturally separates into cream (top) and skim milk (bottom) when left undisturbed for 12-24 hours
Stage 2: Primary Products
• Cream → Butter (yields buttermilk as byproduct)
• Cream → Cultured butter (yields cultured buttermilk)
• Skim milk → Yogurt or cheese (yields whey)
Stage 3: Secondary Products
• Buttermilk → Baked goods, dressings, or cultured cheese
• Whey → Ricotta cheese, lacto-fermented vegetables, or animal feed
• Leftover curds → Amish cup cheese or livestock protein supplement, or a great snack (like smaller batched of cottage cheese)
Stage 4: Zero-Waste Endpoint
Remaining liquid whey after ricotta production becomes premium pig or chicken feed with 0.8-1.0% protein content
Weekly Planning Template:
Monday: Allow 2 gallons to separate
Tuesday: Skim cream, make butter (store buttermilk)
Wednesday: Use skim milk for yogurt
Thursday: Drain yogurt whey, make ricotta
Friday: Use buttermilk for baking
Weekend: Feed remaining whey to livestock
This cascading approach can process 2 gallons of milk into 6-8 different products while generating zero waste.
Temperature-Timed Processing: Matching Milk Age to Recipe Type
Fresh milk isn’t always the best choice for every recipe. Understanding milk’s natural aging process unlocks superior flavor and texture in specific products.
The 7-Day Processing Window:
Day 1-2 (Fresh & Sweet):
• Drinking milk, ice cream, whipped cream
• Milk proteins are tightest, fat globules intact
• Cream whips to stiffest peaks during this window
Day 3-4 (Slightly Aged):
• Yogurt, fresh cheeses like ricotta
• Beneficial bacteria beginning natural multiplication
• pH drops slightly (6.5-6.3), improving curd formation
Day 5-6 (Clabbering Stage):
• Cultured butter, sour cream, Amish cup cheese
• Natural souring creates tangy depth
• Bacteria count peaks for probiotic benefits
Day 7+ (Fully Clabbered):
• Cottage cheese, farmer’s cheese, livestock feed
• Milk has separated into curds and whey naturally
• Maximum tang, unsuitable for sweet applications
Temperature Rule:
Raw milk held at 38-40°F follows this timeline. Milk at 45-50°F accelerates by 50%, while milk at 35°F extends the timeline by 2-3 days.
The Flavor Impact:
Butter from Day 5 cream contains 3-4x more flavor compounds (diacetyl, acetoin) than Day 1 cream, creating restaurant-quality European-style butter without added cultures.
Store milk in dated jars and rotate based on your weekly recipe plan for optimal results.
12 Raw Milk Recipes to Use Excess Milk
Even if you do not have your own dairy cow, you can use raw milk from a local producer- or even pasteurized milk from the store if it is your only option- to make these recipes.
1. Raw Milk Butter
Homemade butter is always my first choice when I have extra whole milk. To make butter, add heavy cream to a stand mixer (or a blender), mix it until it separates, and then remove the butter from the buttermilk. Fresh butter can be stored in the fridge for about a week or in the freezer for months. Get step-by-step instructions for making butter here.
2. Cultured Butter
Cultured butter is essentially butter made with fermented cream. To make cultured butter, add a mesophilic culture of beneficial bacteria to your cream before churning or simply allow raw cream to sit for a bit (24-48 hours) until it begins to sour. This type of butter is great for gut health as it is packed with probiotics. Cultured butter also has more tang than regular sweet cream butter which adds depth of flavor.
3. Buttermilk
When you make fresh butter, you will have buttermilk leftover. You can use this to make Ranch dressing, buttermilk cornbread & biscuits, pancakes, and more. Fresh buttermilk can also be enjoyed like a glass of milk- only a bit tangier.
4. Homemade Cheese
Fresh milk can be turned into your favorite type of cheese. Experiment with different flavors, cultures, aging, and add-ins until you find what your family loves.
Cheddar Cheese Recipe
This step-by-step cloth-bound cheddar cheese recipe has the traditional flavor you know and love. Unlike many other cheddar cheese recipes, the paste for this cheese is still smooth and moist; it’s perfect for slicing, sandwiches, grating for your favorite recipes, or even just snacking with apples and crackers!
Butter Cheese
Butter cheese is a washed-curd, pressed cheese that uses rennet to coagulate the curds. It is a semi-firm cheese with a smooth supple paste with a sweet and mild flavor.
Cream Cheese
On your journey toward becoming a cheesemaker, homemade cream cheese is definitely a recipe to try. The good news is cream cheese is easy, takes very little active time, has a high yield, and is amazingly delicious!
Whether you love cream cheese for homemade cheesecake, spread on bagels, crackers, or toast, for cream cheese frosting, whatever your favorite way to enjoy cream cheese, it is so much better and satisfying when you make it yourself!
Ricotta Cheese
Ricotta cheese is one of the easiest homemade cheese recipes you can make! And it doesn’t even need special ingredients, like rennet or starter cultures, so it’s one everyone can make today.
Amish Cup Cheese (Schmeirkase) & Cottage Cheese
Amish Cup Cheese is also known as Schmeirkase. In this video, RuthAnn Zimmerman explains how she makes these cheeses with clabbered milk and how her family enjoys them.
5. Whipped Cream
Homemade whipped cream is extremely easy to make. All you need to do is skim off excess cream from your raw milk and whip it (along with a little vanilla and powdered sugar) in a stand mixer until it reaches the consistency that you want. There isn’t a great way to store whipped cream long-term, but it can keep in the fridge in an airtight container for about a week.
6. Yogurt
A great option for using up a larger amount of excess raw milk (a gallon of milk per batch) is to make homemade yogurt. Raw milk yogurt can be made in a crockpot, dehydrator, yogurt maker, on the stove, or in the oven.
Read the full instructions for stovetop probiotic yogurt here.
7. Ice Cream
Of course, we can’t forget about homemade ice cream! Raw milk & cream can be made into endless flavors of this sweet treat. Ice cream can be made with eggs, without eggs, with a machine, without a machine, cooked, or with a no-cook method. Seriously, the options just keep going.
Here are a few of our favorite homemade ice cream recipes:
- No Cook Vanilla Ice Cream
- Salted Milk & Honey Ice Cream Without a Machine
- Vanilla Ice Cream With Add-in Options (Coffee, Chocolate, Fruit)
8. Hot Chocolate
Make a batch of hot chocolate for the family to use up a bit of excess raw milk. Top with whipped cream for some added sweet dairy goodness.
This homemade herbal hot chocolate is not only delicious, but it can help with sore throats and respiratory illnesses.
9. Coffee Creamer
Use extra raw milk to make homemade coffee creamer! The cream can be added straight to your coffee or you can add sweeteners and flavors. Here are a couple of good recipes to check out:
- Pumpkin Spice Coffee Creamer
- Coffee Creamer Base with Flavor Options (Hazlenut, Caramel, Milk & Honey, French Vanilla, Mocha, Amaretto, and Coconut)
10. Sour Cream
To make homemade sour cream, you let the cream sour. It is pretty much as easy as that. You will need to add a starter culture of good bacteria, but that is about it. Add culture to warm cream, allow it to sit, and enjoy!
11. Ghee
Ghee is made when butter is heated to separate and cook the milk solids. This is just one step further than clarified butter which stops at having the milk solids separated. If you continue the heating process a little bit longer to cook those solids, then you end up with Ghee!
12. Other Staple Dairy Products
If you are in need of any other dairy products like evaporated milk, powdered milk, or sweetened condensed milk, you could make those with your excess raw milk as well.
13. Livestock Feed
If you just have more milk than you can work with in your kitchen, no worries! Your homestead animals will love it! Raw milk is an excellent addition to livestock feed- especially for the pigs.
MOST IMPORTANT INSIGHTS TO REMEMBER
#1 Raw milk transforms into over a dozen different dairy products including butter, cultured butter, multiple cheese varieties, yogurt, ice cream, ghee, and other staples, making it possible to eliminate waste from excess milk production on a homestead.
#2 The byproducts of one dairy recipe become ingredients for another as butter-making yields buttermilk for baking and dressings, while cheesemaking produces whey that can be made into ricotta or used as livestock feed.
#3 Fermented and cultured dairy products like cultured butter and raw milk yogurt provide probiotic benefits through the natural or added mesophilic bacteria that develop during the 24-48 hour culturing process.
#4 Cream separation happens naturally in raw milk within 12-24 hours when left undisturbed in the refrigerator, allowing homesteaders to skim cream for butter, whipped cream, and ice cream while using the remaining skim milk for other recipes.
#5 Livestock can consume excess raw milk that cannot be processed in the kitchen with pigs particularly benefiting from this high-quality protein supplement, ensuring nothing goes to waste on the homestead.
Pin these raw milk recipes for later!
