
My daughter has this Minnie Mouse seek-and-find book that she can’t seem to put down. She’s found everything on every page, several times over, but still likes to look at all the pictures.
I like kefir just as much, and since there’s always a jar culturing on my kitchen counter, it often finds its way into my budget accountability posts.
I thought it would be fun to do a little seek-and-find with my kefir jar. Because who couldn’t use a little game on Hump Day? Can you find the kefir in these pictures?

Black bean brownie points if you found all four. 🙂
So, back to the kefir. Is it mere coincidence that the easiest fermentation in the whole wide world is also likely the healthiest? I think not.
In case you didn’t know how easy it was, allow me to share quick tutorial:
- combine kefir grains with milk
- allow to sit on the counter for 12-36 hours
- strain grains and repeat
See? Easy peasy.
But one day I let my kefir sit too long and it started to do something weird… the white separated from everything else and I seriously thought I was making cheese.
Which is a whole ‘nuther story. But anyway.
As it turns out, that weird yellow-ish liquid is whey. I’m sure you’ve seen the same weird liquid surface in yogurt and sour cream after a few days. In my pre-real food days, I would have poured off this weird looking stuff and asked Mr. Crumbs if my yogurt was still okay to eat.
As if either of us really knew. 😉
Nowadays though, I’m pouring off this healthy liquid and saving it for something useful like soaking my oats or making pancakes or using it place of water in other recipes.
Did you know that whey contains calcium, thiamin, vitamin B12, vitamin B5, magnesium, potassium, riboflavin, phosphorus, selenium and zinc? Plus loads of other nutrients. Not too shabby for what we originally thought was just icky weird gross stuff!
5 Ways to Make Whey
First, there are two types of whey: sweet whey and acid whey.
Sweet whey is the liquid that comes from making cheese with rennet, like cheddar or Swiss.
Acid whey is the by-product of cultured dairy products like sour cream or yogurt.
Both types of whey are super rich in protein, vitamins and minerals, so we want to find ways to use them up instead of pouring them down the drain. However, acid whey can be damaging to the environment in large quantities, so it’s best to just use sweet whey for gardening and composting ideas.
Although whey will occur naturally without your doing anything, if you DID want to make whey, here are five ways you can do it:
- Allow raw milk to sit at room temperature where the natural bacteria will cause the milk to clabber. Strain the milk using a cheesecloth, a tea towel or an old (but clean) thin t-shirt.
- Use a fine mesh strainer, clean towel or cheesecloth to strain cultured yogurt.
- Strain cultured kefir (with the same methods as #2).
- Strain cultured buttermilk (with the same methods as #2).
- Make homemade Greek yogurt (which is essentially the same as #2).
Why Should You Make Whey?
Two big reasons:
#1 – It’s healthy. Please refer to the above list of 10 vitamins and minerals for details.
#2 – It’s cheap. Like, WAY cheap! As in, it doesn’t cost a dime!
There’s an assumption that if you’re making whey, your original goal was to make something else instead. Whether that be yogurt or kefir or cheese – you were making something other than whey. Therefore, the whey is like a bonus food and free.
There’s a big list below of things you can do with whey, but here’s the best part: When you use whey, you’re replacing something else that cost money. That could be lemon juice, vinegar, milk or even just plain water. When you use whey instead, you’re saving money.
In summary, whey = free healthy food. Awesome! Curious what amazing uses this super-frugal-healthy food has?

36 Ways to Use Whey
- Culture foods. Using the methods in Nourishing Traditions, you can use whey to ferment all sorts of foods… beets, cabbage, carrots – you name it!
- Soak grains. We soak our oatmeal and weekly batches of bread, and now we’ll be doing it with whey. It costs me money to make those (or buy lemon juice), and whey is free!
- Soak beans. Just like grains, your digestive system benefits from beans being soaked before cooking. Swap your acid medium and use whey, or feel free to add more!
- Soak nuts. For the same reasons above. (More on soaking.)
- Make pizza dough. Add a sourdough-ish tang to your dough for a delicious pie. Here’s our favorite dough recipe.
- Make bread. My latest batch of soaked bread (above) was made with 100% whey as the liquid and it was SO good! I’ve heard it helps with whole grains and creating a better texture and my taste buds confirmed this one!
- Stick it in smoothies. Whey is naturally high in protein (almost 2g in one cup!) and it’s my first choice for extra liquid when making protein smoothies.
- Condition your face. The cultures in whey are acidic, so toss some on a cotton ball and use it as a toner.
- Condition your body. Up the ante and add one cup of whey to your bath for an all-over-the-body skin toner.
- Make a face mask. Use whey combined with soothing raw honey for an easy face mask. Your skin will be loving you! More details here.
- Condition hair. If you’re washing with baking soda, a diluted whey rinse will work just as well as the diluted vinegar rinse!
- Pet food. Instead of throwing the extra nutrients down the drain, add them to pet food for some extra vitamins!
- Water the plants. Speaking of saving on water, add a bit of this to your watering can. Be sure to use sweet whey though and not acid whey since it might damage the nutrients in the soil so you should definitely dilute it first. Check out this article for more information.
- Balance the garden’s pH. If watering the plants is out of the question, consider balancing the pH levels of peas, cucumbers and squash by spraying some on just the leaves – the whey will kill the mold that grows! (Again, sweet whey only.)
- Lower the garden’s pH. Blueberries, roses and tomatoes like acidic soil and whey will help you achieve just that.
- Add it to compost. A great outdoors spot if you don’t feel comfortable adding it to your garden, or don’t have one to add it to!
- Substitute for buttermilk. Biscuits, dressings or pancakes? Yep, use whey!
- Substitute for milk. Instead of milk, use whey to make creamy cheese sauce that will get baked and cheese-ified.
- Make rice. Although the heat will kill some of the live enzymes, you’ll still retain the nutrients since rice absorbs all the liquid.
- Make risotto. A combination between the previous two, you’re cooking rice and making it creamy at the same time. Might as well add some nutrition too!
- Make chicken stock. Substitute not just for the apple cider vinegar, but for some of the water too! Trade up to half of the water (or more, depending on your taste preference) for whey and come out the other side with a richer, more flavorful stock.
- Thicken gravy. Chances are if you’re making gravy, it’s topping something unhealthy. Boost the nutrition by using whey.
- Substitute for orange juice. Whey is about as acidic as orange juice, so if you’re using the juice in smoothies or in baking (like yummy scones or in a quick bread), try swapping for whey instead.
- Substitute for lemon juice. Whey tastes much like lemon juice, so it makes a great substitution in recipes or cocktails…
- Make a cocktail. Half whey and half juice, plus sweeten to taste with honey or stevia and you’ve got yourself a deliciously healthy drink!
- Use in salad dressing. Instead of a vinaigrette with lemon juice, how about a vinaigrette with whey?
- Tenderize meat. Swap whey for any vinegar in a traditional meat marinade. Mind that whey will add tang, so adjust seasonings accordingly.
- Make lemonade. Seriously. Here’s the recipe.
- Make ginger ale. Yum!
- Make cream cheese. Similar to the method of culturing milk with buttermilk, but you’re culturing milk with whey and straining for cheese. More details here.
- Make soda. Again, seriously! There’s a Swiss drink called Rivella that’s 10% whey. Way cool!
- Make caramel. Add a bit of salt with a touch of sugar and voila – instant caramel!
- Use it as a brine. Feta cheese will keep longer in whey, and you can use it when brining your Turkey in November too!
- Make ricotta cheese. The word “ricotta” means cooked twice, which is what ends up happening to the whey when you make this cheese. Here’s a super easy tutorial that even I, the bad-cheese maker, could likely do right!
- When all else fails – freeze it. If you’ve got too much and you’re unsure what to do with it, freeze it in ice cubes for later!
- Bonus idea – make mayo. Whey will kick your homemade mayo up a notch by lacto-fermenting it. It also allows the mayo to last longer!
But wait – there’s more! The above ideas were spawned after too much web surfing and not enough dinner. Both Salad in a Jar and The Prairie Homestead have a few more unique ideas for using whey, just in case the above 36 weren’t enough for you. 🙂
Whey is super cheap and super healthy!
One of my favorite ways to use whey is add it to a smoothie. In fact, smoothies are one of my favorite ways to sneak in extra nutrients!
The obvious additions are spinach and kefir in green monster smoothies. But any of these super foods are delicious. And these additions are frugal ways to add protein to your smoothies. My green maca smoothie is deliciously nutty too!
I love smoothies so much I wrote a whole ebook called High Protein No Powder! Filled with information on why you should ditch protein powders and store-bought smoothie mixes and make your own instead. Plus tons of recipes for your own smoothies and protein bars. Find more about it HERE.

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Fantastic article
Thanks
First I love the name of your website. I literally save the crumbs when I cut my homemade bread, to use in recipes. I also scrap the flour off the table where I have been working and resting my dough, to use in sauces and gravy. (Both I freeze until needed.)
All these ideas are wonderful, and most of them I will try. I get way to much whey built up from my yogurt making.
I would like to make a ‘fermented chilli pepper sauce’ recipe that calls for whey. I do not have whey but I do have kombucha. Do you think it would be a good starter for this recipe that I want to make? Thank you.
Hi Louise,
Kombucha tastes a little more zingy than whey, whereas whey has a deeper / sour flavor. I think it could work, depending on the recipe of course, and whether or not the kombucha may have fermented into vinegar. Then the chili pepper sauce would just taste more vinegary. But if you use kombucha that is not over-fermented, it might be an interesting endeavor. Let us know how it turns out. 🙂
Help?? I made yoghurt for the first time yesterday in hopes to strain it today to get the whey and use for my fermented foods that I make. However, the yoghurt is runny and the whey is more white than the offwhite whey I got when I bought the 8 dollar container of bulgarian yoghurt at the store. Ps, the whole milk I used was as “raw” as I could get around here. Lightly pasteurized. Can I still use this milky “whey” I got from my yoghurt in my ferments?? Thanks!!
Cynthia,
That should work fine. Did you try using it? How did it turn out?
you can use it just fine, but next time, you need to heat your milk to at least 180 degrees and then let it cool down. which is why ultra pasturized milk you don’t need to heat at all. it breaks down the proteins for even thicker yogurt. some white straining into your whey is normal though. just pour it into a pitcher and let it settle in the fridge.
So I set aside a half gallon of raw milk to naturally separate for the whey since its cucumber season and I want sweet pickles…. My milk is cleanly separated into 3 layers.
How do I strain that? the top is cream cheese right? the middle is crystal clear whey, and the bottom is “other milk solids”?? what do I do with that? how do i keep the whey clear and the cream cheese from the “other solids” in the bottom?
Hi Melly!
I am so sorry for the delay in response. I’d like to refer you to my friend Wardee at the Traditional Cooking School, because I don’t want to steer you wrong with the wrong answer. Here is a link to whey on her blog. https://traditionalcookingschool.com/food-preparation/askwardee-uses-for-whey/
She has a lot of information on her blog about whey and raw milk. Perhaps you can find an answer with her? I hope this helps. 🙂
I will like to try whey in making beignet if i will have a good tasting beignet.
it might give it a slightly sour flavor, which is why i like it in baked goods that are savory or already have sugar. but otherwise, it should be fine. it works in most of my quick breads and muffins. as well as my sour dough bread that asks for milk and i use whey instead.
Lisa, mixing it in good ratios with yogurt would probably be great. I have not personally tried it with salad and don’t know if that would turn out well.
There are so many amazing possibilities
I’m not at the point of making whey yet- is there whey that I can purchase and use the same way?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen whey in grocery stores, but if you buy yogurt, the liquid that accumulates at the top is whey!
Great post! I have a hard time wasting anything, so if I’m desperate, it has to at least go in the compost. I’ll keep this in mind for future reference since making cheese is on my bucket list. 🙂
Thank you for these suggestions. I made yogurt today for the first time. I am very excited to try using the whey in my biscuits.
Do you know how to ferment sweet whey?
The reason plain Greek yogurt (that has sugar of 6 or lower) is okay for those that are lactose intolerant is because it is strained and the majority of the lactose sugars are strained away in the whey. I learned it from extensive research when I became very lactose intolerant. Thinking about it, I’m not really sure why I even asked the question when it should have made sense to me. HaHa! But for anyone else who doesn’t know, I guess it’s there. Also, the reason longer fermented yogurt is easier to digest is because it has had longer for the bacteria to consume the lactose in the yogurt. Unfortunately for me, I don’t like really tart yogurt, and yogurt gets more tart the longer it cultivates.
I strain my yogurt because I am lactose intolerant, and straining out the whey gets rid of most of that lactose. So that means I probably can’t use the whey for consumong, right?
I’ve never heard that most of the lactose is found in the whey, so I can’t offer any suggestions there. Where did you hear this Tracy? Could it be that homemade yogurt is simply easier to digest than store-bought? Because I HAVE heard that before, especially when yogurt is fermented for longer than 12 hours.
1 gal fat free common milk in Instant Pot on yogurt setting, then strained thru white-handkerchief-lined colander overnight in fridge, yields 72 liquid oz of whey and 55 weight oz of Greek yogurt thick as cream cheese. I freeze whey in 64 oz plastic juice bottles, for later use as marinade instead of buttermilk for succulent juicy chicken, pork, fish.
I leave it in my yogurt and Kefir and consume it that way. Very healthy.
Love the site so helpful, I made Ricotta cheese and have loads of whey left, so now I know what to do with it. Thanks again.