From scratch · Dairy

Butter (and the buttermilk it leaves)

Whip cream past whipped cream until it breaks into butter and a thin, sweet buttermilk.

✋ 25 min hands-on ⏱ 45 min start to finish 🍽 About 7½ oz of butter (a little under 2 sticks) and about 1 cup of buttermilk from 1 pint of cream.

ContainsMilk.

Ingredients

  • 2 cup heavy cream, not ultra-pasteurized if you can find it; it churns faster
  • 3 g table salt, for salted butter (optional)
  • 2 cup water, ice cold, for washing

Time

Hands-on time is when you’re busy; the rest is rising, simmering, chilling or cooling, when you can do something else.

StepHands-onWaiting
Warm the cream a little–20 min
Churn, wash and shape the butter25 min–
In all25 min20 min

How long it keeps

  • Refrigerator: 1 to 2 months, wrapped (NDSU’s figure for butter); homemade butter lasts longest when every bit of buttermilk is washed out.
  • Freezer: 6 to 9 months (NDSU). Unsalted butter loses flavor sooner (NDSU).
  • The buttermilk: keep it cold and use it within about 5 days, as for milk (NDSU).

Nutrition

Most of the cream’s water, sugar and some protein leave with the buttermilk, so the numbers are USDA’s for butter.

Steps

You’ll need: stand mixer with whisk, hand mixer, or a 1-quart jar with a tight lid, fine strainer, bowl of ice water, spatula.

  1. Let the cream sit out about 20 minutes so it is cool but not fridge-cold, about 55 to 60°F.
  2. Whip it on medium-high. It turns to whipped cream, then stiff and grainy, then suddenly breaks: yellow clumps and splashing thin liquid, usually 8 to 12 minutes. Drape a towel over the mixer once it starts to splash. (Or shake it hard in the jar, 10 to 20 minutes.)
  3. Pour everything into a strainer over a bowl. The liquid is the buttermilk; save it in the fridge.
  4. Wash the butter: put it in a bowl, add about ½ cup ice water, and press and fold it with a spatula, then pour the cloudy water off. Repeat until the water stays clear, usually 3 or 4 times. Leftover buttermilk is what makes butter go sour.
  5. Knead in the salt if you are using it, press out the last of the water, shape it, wrap it and refrigerate.
⚖️ ScalingEach pint of cream makes about 7½ oz of butter. Churn no more than the mixer bowl can hold at one-third full, since cream more than doubles before it breaks.
Good to knowThe buttermilk from churning sweet cream is thin and mild, not the tangy cultured buttermilk sold in stores. Use it like milk in pancakes, biscuits or bread. In a recipe that counts on buttermilk’s acid to work with baking soda, it won’t do the same job.
📜 The old wayOn farms, cream was skimmed from milk, often allowed to sour a little, and churned by hand in a wooden churn. The thin liquid left behind was the original buttermilk; today’s thick store buttermilk is made instead by adding cultures to milk.

Use it in

🍗 Simple Roast Chicken🍲 Chicken Noodle Soup🥪 Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup🐟 Lemon-Garlic Baked Salmon🥩 Skillet Pork Chops🥧 Shepherd's Pie🥧 Chicken Pot Pie🧀 Stovetop Mac and Cheese🥞 Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes🍳 Soft Scrambled Eggs🍞 Cinnamon French Toast🍚 Fluffy White Rice🍚 Baked Brown Rice🥔 Creamy Mashed Potatoes🫛 Garlic Butter Green Beans🌽 Buttered Corn on the Cob🥖 Garlic Bread

Sources

  1. Making Goat Milk Butter at Home, UC Davis Dairy Research and Information Center. Accessed 2026-10-25.
  2. Food Storage Guide (FN579), NDSU Extension, reviewed January 2023. Accessed 2026-10-25.
  3. Food Freezing Basics: Freezing Dairy Products, Eggs and Other Foods (FN616), NDSU Extension, reviewed 2022. Accessed 2026-10-25.
  4. Buttermilk, Wikipedia. Accessed 2026-10-25.

In the meal planner, tap Make it next to butter, salted on the shopping list: the list swaps it for these ingredients, scaled to your meals, and the Prep day tab fits the work into your week. More from-scratch recipes.

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