[something, something..... milk-related pun]

April 12, 2024 5:33 AM

I have an unopened, 2L carton of milk that expires today. What should I make to a) use it up b) extend its life a bit?

I was considering making a fresh cheese or yogurt, but I'm not sure if making that with milk that is about to expire would mean I just end up with cheese that's about to expire. I'm aware that expiry dates are guidelines, particularly since the milk is still sealed, but hoping to end up doing something not completely futile.

posted by Mrs. Rattery to Food & Drink (12 answers total)

Best answer: Cheese or yogurt are exactly what my gran made with milk that was about to expire, all the time. It was always delicious. I haven't really got to it myself, because I rarely have milk at all.

I did have some last week, and my plan was to make a bechamel sauce and then bake a moussaka or lasagne and freeze it. I've done that the other times it happened. But this time I just gave it to the dog.
posted by mumimor at 5:41 AM on April 12, 2024 [3 favorites]

My brother gave me this yogurt culture that works at room temperature. Easiest yogurt ever. Also, blender ice cream.

One yogurt recipe

Homemade cottage cheese
posted by mecran01 at 5:58 AM on April 12, 2024 [1 favorite]

With milk I'm of the mind that the nose knows. If it doesn't stink, I'll use it as normal but I'll also try and use it up as quickly as I can. I'll usually use it to bake something, or in a sauce, or something like that. I've never tried making cheese or yogurt, but those both sound like good uses to me!
posted by eekernohan at 6:01 AM on April 12, 2024

Best answer: If you make paneer you can cube it and freeze it for later use. It freezes really well. I don't have a recipe link (easy enough to find many with a quick search), but you just need the milk, some edible acid (lemon juice, vinegar, citric acid) and some cheesecloth & string (and a stove and a spoon and a pot obvs).

If you search for a recipe choose the unfussiest one, it doesn't need to be complex.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 6:03 AM on April 12, 2024 [4 favorites]

My favorite recipes for about-to-expire milk are:
(1) mac & cheese
(2) any kind of pudding (rice pudding, chocolate pudding, bread pudding, you name it)

Exact recipes can be googled easily and selected based on your preference. Puddings may or may not freeze well depending on the type you make - bread pudding and rice pudding do but vanilla/chocolate pudding does not. Mac and cheese freezes perfectly and you can have several dinners' worth from 2L of milk.

Your idea of making cheese and yogurt is also great! Just giving you some other options in case you are so inclined. Maybe you can make a little yogurt and a little mac n' cheese and a little rice pudding, you know?

Re: freezing milk, I'd be wary of doing that with milk that is about to expire, because your milk may expire as it thaws when you decide to use it - freezing merely arrests the spoilage, and thawing would restart it. Whereas if you cook (or ferment, or curdle, or whatever) the milk before freezing it, that process kills off a bunch of microbes and actually extends the lifespan of the milk.
posted by MiraK at 7:11 AM on April 12, 2024 [4 favorites]

As long as the milk is not sour, cheese and yogurt are perfect for this. When you open the milk, give it a smell and take a little taste. Still sweet? Good to go. Cheese is, after all, milk's leap to immortality. I eat a lot of yogurt and tend to make a couple of quarts per week. I have some culturing right now, in fact. But if you don't have something to culture it with, you can make soft cheeses like paneer or ricotta using lemon juice.

Otherwise, I'd probably make a couple of quiches and a few batches of muffins or cornbread and freeze most of it.
posted by carrioncomfort at 7:52 AM on April 12, 2024 [2 favorites]

It’s unopened so likely in good shape, esp in a cold fridge. You could bring it up to boiling temp for a minute to extend its life. I’d freeze it. Or, make peanut butter fudge, so intended to do with the milk that just went bad in my fridge. And pudding, because I just learned that pudding shots are a thing, and I want to try some chocolate and kahlua.
posted by theora55 at 9:09 AM on April 12, 2024 [1 favorite]

Puddings may or may not freeze well depending on the type you make ... vanilla/chocolate pudding does not.

What I would add here is that basic puddings don't *defrost* well -- they get a bit broken, usually. But they freeze quite nicely, and I love a pudding pop as an ice cream alternative. I have little freezie-sized ziplock bags for the purpose, but popsicle molds, or just covering small containers with tinfoil and shoving a spoon into it to freeze it on a stick also works.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:17 AM on April 12, 2024 [3 favorites]

A nice fish chowder would work.

I also tend to do milk puddings with large quantities of milk that need to be used up.

You can also make it up into pancakes and freeze those. They go straight from the freezer into a hot oven and turn out well, so you could have a week of pancake breakfasts that you can enjoy on work day mornings.
posted by Jane the Brown at 12:13 PM on April 12, 2024 [1 favorite]

Old / sour milk just means it's almost [yogurt/sour cream/cheese]. So having it be starter cheese is just fine. Or rice pudding, custard, yadda yadda. Especially if your process cooks the milk, that should handle any other food poisoning concerns you might have.

Worth mentioning the expiration date, for unopened products especially, is also not really like on this date it transmutes from good to bad. So you've got some time still.

I am assuming here this is ordinary supermarket pasteurized milk that's been through the usual food safety treatments, mind. Raw milk might have other considerations.
posted by Lady Li at 2:11 PM on April 12, 2024 [1 favorite]

Re: Milk Pun Title --> Don't cry over (nearly) spoilt milk

If you make a ricotta cheese from your milk, that is the perfect excuse to make ricotta brownies!
posted by Sauter Vaguely at 4:16 PM on April 12, 2024

Response by poster: THanks all! I ended up making yogurt in my instant pot and HOLY COW it worked and it's great!
posted by Mrs. Rattery at 5:27 AM on April 14, 2024 [2 favorites]