What to do with all that Whey

-

In my last post I showed how to make feta cheese. One gallon of milk will give you one pound of cheese and about 3 quarts, maybe a bit more, of whey. Is it good for anything? Oh yes it is!! So if you make the cheese don't toss out the whey.

Whey still has a lot of healthful nutritional value to it. It is cultured (think probiotic. Probiotcs are expensive to buy and how great you can them as a by product of cheese making), it has some protein in it (whey is the main ingredient in many protein powders), it contains calcium and many B vitamins.

Here are some of the great things you can do with it....


Baking
Use whey instead of the liquids called for in a recipe. I've used it for yeast breads and quick breads. It adds a lot to the texture of your finished product. I made a batch of pancakes with it and they were yummy...



Smoothies
Use whey for the liquid in your smoothie. I've been doing this every day since I made cheese. It is delicious and nutritious.. A great source of probiotics. You can find my favorite smoothie recipe HERE.



Whey Lemonade
I make lemonade for my husband to take to work every week. It is easy to make and frugal. I used some whey when I made it last week. It ups the nutritional value of simple lemonade.




Whey Lemonade

2 cups bottled lemon juice
¾ cup sugar
1 cup of whey
Water to fill
gallon size pitcher or jar

To make this I heat a little water up to dissolve the sugar. Then put this in a gallon size pitcher or jar. Add the lemon juice and whey. Fill the pitcher or jar to the top with water. Let this sit on the counter for 2 to 3 days to ferment.

The end result was delicious. Taste it and see if you like your lemonade sweeter than the recipe states. My husband likes his a bit on the tart side.
 

Fermented Veggies
I've used whey a lot over the years in making fermented veggies. I started making them after reading Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. You can find info on how I do this HERE.


Substitute for Buttermilk
Since whey is acidic you can use it as a substitute in recipes calling for buttermilk.


Marinade
The enzymes in the whey help to break down proteins and will make your meat more tender and flavorful. Soak your meat in whey for a couple of hours before grilling it.


Pets
You can feed it to your chickens or dogs. Since it is a milk product I would hesitate to feed it to cats.


Bone Broth
You can use whey instead of vinegar when you are making stock or broth. I had a few chicken legs leftover last week from our dinner and I used them to make stock for chicken soup. I put the bones in the crockpot along with some veggies and added a cup of whey and about 4 or 5 cups of water. I let this cook for 24 hours, strained it and made soup from it.



Freeze It
If you don't think you can use that much whey up quickly enough, freeze it. It works great after it is defrosted.


****As a side note, you can get whey from other sources than feta cheese. You can also get it from yogurt or kefir. Hang it like I showed in my last post and let the whey drip from it.


 

Comments

Post a Comment

All messages are moderated. After approval your message will be posted. Thank you for your comments!! Crystal :)

Popular posts from this blog

Canning Chicken Noodle-less Soup

-
Image
Today was one of those busy days that it seemed I was moving from the time my feet hit the floor until this evening.. But, I got so much done and that is a great feeling! :) One of my accomplishments today was canning 14 jars of chicken noodle-less soup. I call it “noodle-less” because you can’t can noodles. They end up falling apart. So I canned the chicken, veggies and broth. When I go to use the soup I will bring it to a boil and then add a handful of noodles (any type of pasta will work) and cook it until the noodles are done. Because I plan to add the pasta after the fact I wanted to make sure there was enough chicken broth to do this. So I only filled my jars about half to two thirds with chicken and veggies and then filled with chicken broth. Here is how I did this…. I started off with 2 chickens that were a total weight of about 10lbs. I put them in my 14 quart stock pot… I then added 2 gallons of water.. And 3 tablespoons salt.. I brought this ...
Read more

Canning Cabbage

-
Image
I had 4 large heads of cabbage that weighted about 25 pounds. We had some really hot days and I figured I better get the last of them picked soon. My daughter Sierra and I ended up processing 3 of them yesterday and I have one left for a meal on my menu this week. I made pickled cabbage and then canned up the last of the cabbage. Here is the recipe for the pickled cabbage (according to how I made it)… 8 pounds cabbage 1 large onion 1 ½ red peppers 1 lb carrots ¾ cup salt 9 cups water 12 cups white vinegar 10 cups sugar 1t mustard seed 1t celery seed Slice cabbage thinly. Slice onion and peppers. Grate carrots. Mix all veggies together in a very large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and mix in well. Let sit for 2 hours to soften veggies. Rinse veggies well.  In a large stock pot (mine was 14 quarts) combine water, vinegar, sugar, spices. Bring to a boil. Add cabbage/veggies. Bring to a boil. Fill hot pint jars with veggies using a slotted spoon. Fill jar with brine...
Read more

Canning Beef Stew

-
Image
In my last blog post I shared that I had bought 10 pounds of beef roast. I cut it all up and used 4 pounds in 2 crockpot freezer meals ( http://homesteadinghomemaker.blogspot.com/2012/02/two-more-crockpot-meals-for-freezer.html ) . I used the other 6 pounds of meat along with potatoes, carrots, onions and celery to can beef stew. Here were the general proportions I used in canning 7 quarts of beef stew.. 6# beef 2# potatoes 2# carrots 1# onions 1# celery After I cut up the meat and got the freezer meals done I moved to the beef stew. I peeled and cut up the potatoes and carrots. I chopped up the onions and sliced the celery. I pulled out 3 quarts of veggie stock from my freezer to use for liquid in the stew. You can use beef or chicken stock or you can use water. I did not add anything to thicken the liquid as usually thickeners don’t hold up in canning. You can thicken the broth after it is opened if you would like. I added 1 teaspoon salt to each of my ...
Read more