Recipes to Use Up Milk
What to Do with Extra Milk!
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Looking for some new recipes to use up milk? When you have dairy goats, at some point you will have more milk than you and your family can possibly drink. Once the kids are weaned, if you keep milking your doe, you will have milk … every day. It just keeps coming and coming!
The laws for selling milk and other dairy products vary a lot from state to state, and many states make it very difficult for the small dairy goat owner to legally sell their excess milk and/or cheese. So we are often left to figure out what to do with all that extra milk so that it doesn’t go to waste. My “go-to” activity when I have too much milk is making goat cheese for my family. Chèvre is so quick and easy you can fit it into even the busiest day and it also freezes well. Some people even make milk kefir, although I have never tried that one … yet!
Here is a list of some of the things you can do with milk, along with a few recipes with lots of milk. How to use up milk sometimes takes creativity and I bet many of our readers have some ideas and recipes that I haven’t thought of. Feel free to write in and share them!
What to do with extra milk:
- Drink it
- Feed it to:
- Goat babies
- Orphaned babies
- Chickens, hogs, or dogs
- Cook with it (in any recipe that calls for milk or cream)
- Sell it (if you can!)
- Make:
- Cheese (ricotta, mozzarella, bloomy rind, hard cheeses, and other aged cheeses)
- Ice cream
- Yogurt
- Fudge
- Caramels
- Cajeta
- Butter
- Soap
- Lotion
- Paint
Yes, paint! Making paint out of milk by adding it to powdered lime and pigment is an ancient art that dates back all the way to the times of King Tut. Apparently, the inside of his tomb was coated with a dairy-based lacquer.
Here’s a quick easy recipe from my friend Karen Butler of Mega Milkers in Wyoming:
Goat Milk Paint
- 1 gallon of goat milk
- 2 cups hydrated lime
- 1 quart linseed oil
- 1/2 cup salt
- Water-soluble dye
Strain with a fine mesh screen. Use within two days of mixing. Makes about 1-1/2 gallons of paint.
I have made many recipes to use up milk, but when it comes to great bath and body products that use goat milk, I decided to check in with my old pal, June Small of The Small Farm Life in Central Texas. June is one of the craftiest, most creative people I know. She runs a wonderful cottage industry to make use of her excess goat milk and I asked her to share a couple of her recipes with us.
One of her best recipes to use up milk is a skin-nourishing goat milk lotion. She ultra-pasteurizes the milk (high temps) to keep it from going rancid.
The Small Farm Goat Milk Lotion
Yield: about 20 ounces
Ingredients:
Oils:
- 1.2 oz shea butter
- 1.6 oz sweet almond oil
- 1.0 oz avocado oil
- 1.0 stearic acid
- 1.2 oz emulsifying wax
Liquids:
- 11.6 oz distilled water
- 5.4 oz goat milk, ultra-pasteurized
Add-Ins:
- 0.2 oz preservative (Phenonip preferred)
- 0.2 oz fragrance or essential oil
Instructions:
- 1. Sterilize all equipment.
- 2. Combine liquids in a container and warm to about 100 degrees F.
- 3. Combine all oils (except shea butter) and warm until melted. Once melted, stir in butter until melted.
- 4. Combine liquids and oils with whisk then mix with stick blender. Mix for two to three minutes until combined and fluffy.
- 5. Make sure lotion is under 140 degrees F then pour in add-ins.
- 6. Blend again until fluffy.
- 7. Pour into bottles and allow to cool to room temperature before closing with lids.
Another big seller for June is her charcoal soap. This is super good for acne and deep cleansing and the black color is quite dramatic.
The Small Farm Activated Charcoal Goat Milk Soap
Yield = approx 36 (4oz) bars
Ingredients
Oils:
- 28 oz olive oil
- 27 oz coconut oil
- 20 oz lard or palm oil
- 4 oz castor oil
- 4 oz shea butter
- 1 oz jojoba oil
Lye Mixture:
- 11 oz lye (sodium hydroxide)
- 41 oz goat milk, raw (preferred), partially frozen to slushy consistency
Add Ins:
- 3 Tbsp activated charcoal
- 2.5 oz rosemary essential oil
- 1.5 oz lavender essential oil
- 1 oz tea tree oil
Instructions:
- Place slushy milk in a glass or stainless steel bowl.
- Put all oils in stainless steel stockpot. Place pot on low heat until oils are approx 120 degrees F. Remove from heat.
- Whisk activated charcoal into warm oils. Whisk until there are no lumps or pockets of charcoal.
- Put on safety equipment (goggles, gloves) and be sure to have good ventilation.
- Carefully add lye to slushy milk. (NEVER ADD LIQUID TO THE LYE!) Pour lye very slowly so that milk does not burn. Goal temperature for lye mixture is 120 degrees F. If too hot, place in an ice bath.
- Once oils and lye mixture are proper temps, add lye mixture to oils and whisk.
- Stir continuously until trace is reached. (This may take 20-30 minutes.)
- Stir in essential oils and whisk until trace is reached again.
- Pour into molds.
- Allow soap to cure for a few days before removing from molds. Once out of molds, allow to cure four to six weeks before using.
You can find June’s products at her website thesmallfarmlife.com as well as on Etsy and in some shops in and around Central Texas.
In addition to using up excess milk for skincare products and paint, of course, you can make cheese or yogurt and then you’ll find you also have an abundance of excess whey. Luckily there are many uses for whey, too — from baking bread to helping to break down compost. That milk — it’s the gift that just keeps giving!
Originally published in the May/June 2020 issue of Goat Journal and regularly vetted for accuracy.
