We don’t use much milk in our house. The OH always drinks tea and coffee at the farm, I use it for cooking but at the moment, milk is too high carb for my keto diet so I’m not eating cereal for breakfast. N goes through phases at breakfast. Some weeks he’ll eat cereal most days, other weeks he’ll just eat toast. So I always need to have some milk in, but it’s an unknown how much we’ll use.
Usually I buy a couple of 1 pint cartons so I don’t have to open large cartons that don’t get used. But they’re not available during this lockdown – I’m getting only 2 pints or 4 pint bottles depending on what’s available. If I have too much to get through, I can send some over to the farm, as there are lots of hot drinks drunk over there each day, plus there are farm cats who’ll use some of it when it’s gone a little off.
I could freeze milk, but our chest freezer is too full, plus the OH thinks milk goes a little weird after being frozen. So I’ve been trying to make use of surplus milk rather than resorting to feeding it to the cats. I’ve pulled together recipes to use up milk.
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Tips and recipes to use up milk at home
Drinks
The obvious ways to use up extra milk are drinks. Just plain milk or one of the below.
Hot chocolate
Check out my slow cooker hot chocolate 4 ways, or just heat up milk in the microwave or in a pan and add the hot chocolate powder.
Milkshakes
Stick with the lazy option and just add a milkshake powder or syrup and mix to combine. Alternatively put milk into a blender, add chopped fruit (strawberries or bananas work well) and blitz. Add ice cream to make it really thick and creamy. We use the Nutribullet to make them.
Smoothies
Rather than adding water to smoothies, try milk especially for fruit based ones, or to thin out thick banana or avocado based smoothies.
Desserts
There are lots of old fashioned puddings which need milk, but they still work for treats, in particular if the weather isn’t warm. Cosying up with a hot stodgy pudding under a blanket is great and there are some puddings that need milk to make them.
Rice pudding
Easily made in the slow cooker or oven. Keep rice pudding simple with a teaspoonful of jam on top, or add fruit to taste.
Custard
Make it from scratch or use custard powder that needs milk, rather than the instant powder. Use custard to top puddings, use in bread and butter pudding, fill doughnuts or add as a layer in trifle.
Blancmange
I make chocolate blancmange in the microwave because I’m rubbish at heating milk without burning on the hob, but the OH makes it on the cooker. We prefer chocolate, but you can make strawberry or a plain vanilla version.
Pancakes
Make thick fluffy american style or thinner crepe style pancakes. Best with lemon and sugar topping, but choose your own sweet or savoury filling.
Hot milk cake
An old fashioned american type of sponge cake, I made it in 2 parts to sandwich it with lemon curd, and a lemon icing on top, rather than in the bundt tin the recipes I found online suggested.
Ice cream
I’d always thought you’d use cream rather than milk to make ice cream. Here’s a simple frozen ice cream
Other recipes that use up milk
Cheese sauce
I make my version a microwavable cheese sauce which is so much easier to wash up the jug afterwards. Use for cauliflower cheese, topping lasagne, or even for a quick macaroni cheese. Add a little nutmeg for extra flavour.
Yorkshire pudding / Toad in the Hole
Delicious using it for the main traditional dishes, but you could also try yorkshire pudding wraps. If you really love yorkshire pudding, why not try it as a sweet version, topping with fruit and cream
Porridge
Adding 1 part milk and 1 part water to the part of oats will give a creamier porridge than just water.
Tomato soup
Make a simple soup by softening a small chopped onion and crushed garlic clove in in olive oil in a pan, add 1 tbsp tomato puree, can of chopped tomatoes and basil (fresh or dry to taste). Simmer for 25 mins til reduced and thick, then blend to make it smoother. (you can cool and freeze for later at this point). Put a pinch of bicarbonate of soda in a mug and add a tbsp of milk, stir to mix and remove any lumps. Then add that into the tomato base with 500-600ml of milk. Bring to boiling, stirring regularly, then simmer to heat up again for around 5 minutes before serving.
You can leave it lumpy at the first stage if you prefer. I use a hand blender as we prefer it smooth. This recipe only takes around 35 minutes and serves 3-4 people.
So just a few of the ways you can use up spare milk before it goes off, if you don’t want to freeze it or just drink it straight.
What recipes do you make which use up milk?
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