I have some buttermilk that has a “sell by” date of 8/10/10. It smells a bit off, but I think that is what buttermilk is supposed to smell like. It is slightly separated, but fine if I shake it up.
I’d like to make a batch of my famous banana muffins.
Is it OK??
Yes, it should be fine.
I put some buttermilk in the freezer. (I hate buttermilk, but I’ve a recipe that calls for it.) How long should I let it defrost in the fridge before I use it? What about on the counter?
Until it melts should be fine. If you’re specifically asking how long that will be, well, too many variables to give a clear answer. Just wait until it becomes liquid.
OK well I went ahead and used it, and my banana muffins are in the oven now.
The only thing I didn’t do was lick the bowl… didn’t want to get sick just in case it was bad.
I’ve used buttermilk that has been out of date by a couple of months, and it’s never made me sick. The same goes for a lot of my family. As long as it doesn’t actually have mold growing on it, you can use the buttermilk.
After all, buttermilk is already spoiled when you buy it, which is the whole point. The bacteria introduced into the milk to make it into buttermilk will keep other harmful bacteria from growing for a long while.
I just wouldn’t recommend drinking it when it’s that old, as the taste gets quite bad.
Better safe than sorry, of course. But 8/10 is a “sell by” date, not a “use by date.” Properly refrigerated, milk should last at least a week beyond the “sell by” date. And it’s not like there’s some special mechanism by which milk suddenly goes bad at the stroke of midnight on the expiration date, anyway. Buttermilk should be able to last much longer, given the reasons Mr. Accident has stated.
‘There’s milk in the refrigerator that’s about to go bad. Whoops… there it goes.’
I generally dispense with buttermilk and just use sour milk - which in old cookbooks was often used freely interchangeably with buttermilk anyway.
Don’t have any sour milk? Just take a tablespoon of white vinegar and add milk to make 1 cup. Let stand a few minutes to sour the milk up and you’re set.
I’ve done this for baking and in making fried chicken. No complaints yet.
Buttermilk lasts a good long time past its sell-by date.
I just bought some of this yesterday. As someone who has thrown out my share of half-full cartons of buttermilk, it felt like I was discovering gold in the grocery store.
ETA: You know, that site isn’t really clear. It’s powdered!
I’ll use buttermilk as long as it’s in liquid form. When it starts lumping up is when I toss it out.
I’ve used the powdered buttermilk, but I don’t like the results as well in baked goods. Anything that has baking soda in it seems to need the ooomph from the slightly acidic nature of buttermilk.
I love you.
I only use buttermilk only when making pumpkin whoopie pies (which isn’t all that often) so I never buy it. I just do the milk and vinegar thing. It’s so much less expensive than buying buttermilk.
Stole it. 
I have seen that and have been thinking about trying it.
How did the muffins turn out? Are you okay? 