How to Make Raw Sour Cream

One of the biggest advantages to having raw milk in the fridge, and picking it up from a local farm ever week is not only to take advantage of the immune boosting properties… but also to be able to make sour cream and butter from the comfort of your own kitchen.

Making sour cream is one of the easiest things to make. It might even be more easy than the one way drive to the grocery store. It requires so little effort, and will make the best sour cream you have ever had.

The hardest part you might have is finding raw milk  – but then that will depend on where you live, state wise.

This particular sour cream recipe cannot be made with pasteurized milk – there are a multitude of other sour cream recipes you *might * find out there that are a little more elaborate, that will involve different items that will permit you to use pasteurized milk. 

Why is this?

Heat treated milk (pasteurized) turns what was once raw, nutrient-rich, immune boosting milk into a lifeless substance that has absolutely no beneficial bacteria — part of that pasteurization renders the lactase (which allows your body to digest milk) to be unavailable, which is why many people cannot drink {pasteurized milk} but can drink raw – raw has lactase. Lactase allows you to digest.

Pretty simple.

Raw Milk can sit out on the counter at room temperature and still be very safe to consume – whereas, doing that with pasteurized milk, your milk would become rancid and would make you very sick. Read the Weston A. Price Foundation website to find out more about raw milk and where  you might be able to find it locally in your area.

Here are some easy steps to making {raw} sour cream here in your own home – without any special tools or ingredients, just raw milk.

Take your raw milk out of the fridge and you will notice that the cream has come to the surface – if you look at the outside of my gallon, you can see that the cream has risen to the top of the gallon simply from the color change.

Milk will be on the bottom.

Disclosure: Looking at my picture above, the milk is on the left, cream is on the right – that’s because I had my gallons laying down for a few days – when I have 10 gallons in my fridge it’s the only way I can “fit’ them all in there. ;)   In a normal world, normal people with a super large fridge would have them standing up…. I just have a small fridge.

Do you love the cream? I personally L-O-V-E the cream. Yum. Give me all the cream. Ill gladly drink every last drop.

Here are two ways to make sour cream from your raw milk cream:

#1: Using the Raw Milk Cream

If you aren’t making sour cream, you can shake up the gallon so as to disperse the cream.  Or, if you opt to make sour cream (like we are doing in this recipe) simply spoon of the cream and put it in a clean, mason jar.  The cream will be thick – it’ll coat your spoon.  If your milk has been on it’s side like mine has, that means you will have to let it stand upright long enough on the counter until the cream floats back up to the top. 

Simple as that.

If you get a little milk in with the cream, that’s ok too – because once you let it sit on the counter, it will naturally separate.Put a lid on the mason jar, and leave it slightly open.  

Let that mason jar sit, on your counter, at room temperature for 24-48 hours – with time, it will thicken.  After 24-48 hours, if it isn’t thick enough, you can set it in your fridge and it will thicken up even more.

Once it is at the thickness you like, put it in your fridge – just know that your raw sour cream is not going to be quite as thick as the store purchased sour cream, simply because they use gelatins and thickeners to get them and keep them that way.  Yours is full of probiotics that is great for your gut. Yum!

#2: Combine Raw Milk Cream with Milk Kefir

I have also made sour cream with milk kefir AND raw milk cream – while it’s just a little more involving, it’s not really difficult at all.  You will need to start with 6 oz. of heavy cream from the top of your raw milk gallon, and you will need to combine that with 2 oz of raw milk kefir.

This is Kefir – before it has been strained into raw milk kefir

Not kefir grains.

But kefir. 

Not sure how to get raw milk kefir? It’s pretty easy – your raw milk farm may have kefir available in their farm cooler every week from raw milk customers who have an overabundance of kefir.

In the basket are kefir ‘grains’ from the jar of kefir that you strained – the milk kefir is on the bottom.

Kefir grains look like small pieces of cottage cheese – they multiply quickly. You will combine 2 Tbsp of raw kefir grains with 8 -10 oz of raw milk in a glass or plastic jar on your counter and allow to “ferment” for 24 hours. Pour the solution in a fine mesh strainer, and gently push the milk through, keeping back the grains. Place the grains back in the glass jar or plastic cup, and add fresh, raw milk and the process starts again.

The liquid you have strained is now Raw Milk Kefir. 

Add 2 oz of that raw milk kefir to your 6 oz of raw heavy cream that you skimmed off the top of the gallon and combine in a glass jar. Place a lid on top, and leave it slightly open Let that jar sit on your counter for 24-48 hours to thicken.  Once it thickens up, place it in the fridge with a tight lid – enjoy that on your potatoes, recipes that call for sour cream, or even soups.

That is it!   VERY simple – and full of incredible flavor and probiotics – great for your gut.