If you have a dairy goat or cow you will occasionally find that your cup, refrigerator, and freezer all runneth over with milk. Here are some ideas to use up the excess milk so that it doesn’t go to waste!
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When you get almost a gallon of milk a day per goat, it is easy to run out of space and ideas for using it up!
I milk between two and four Nubian does twice daily and this provides more than enough milk for my family and soap making business. To avoid wasting it, I have had to come up with creative ideas for utilizing the surplus.
Below you will find things that I personally do to use up extra milk! Some are quick and easy to do on the fly, others require some planning in advance.
1. Drink Extra Milk
I’m sure you’ve already thought of this one, but nevertheless, I wanted to include it. Drinking milk with at least two of your meals will help prevent getting a backlog of fresh milk.
When I need to entice my family members to drink more milk than usual, I have two tricks. One is to get out the chocolate syrup for making chocolate milk and the second is buying Oreos. No, it’s not the healthiest option, but every once in a while, it’s ok and it works… the extra milk magically disappears!
2. Make Smoothies or Protein Shakes with Extra Milk
When we have extra milk in our house, my husband and I will occasionally replace one of our meals with a smoothie or protein shake. The kids like them too, and it’s a great way to add fruits and vegetables to their diet. My favorite is what I call the “Green Goat,” it has banana, spinach, and vanilla protein powder. For the recipe, click here!
Smoothies and protein shakes are perfect for when you are working outside or are on the go. A cool, portable, light lunch can be refreshing and a time saver. I recently got a Starfrit personal blender and I love it!
3. Make Cheese with Extra Milk
Cheese making is a great way to use up extra milk! With my goat milk, I make a delicious chevre with a recipe from the Thrifty Homesteader. I buy mesophilic cultures on Amazon and rennet from the New England Cheesemaking Company.
When I don’t have special ingredients on hand, I make a basic farmer’s cheese with distilled white vinegar which is tasty too!
4. Make Yogurt with Extra Milk
I have made yogurt a few times with my extra goat milk. I have tried using both a slow cooker and instant pot to incubate the yogurt. I have also experimented with buying yogurt starter cultures and just using plain yogurt with live cultures as the starter. I haven’t figured out what I like best yet, so you will have to do your own research.
Homemade yogurt is tangy and delicious, but from my experience, it is thinner than yogurt you can buy at the store.
5. Make Ice Cream with Extra Milk
Homemade ice cream is the best! If you have an ice cream maker, get your milk out and go for it. If you’re like me, and don’t have one, never fear, you can still make amazing homemade ice cream with just a round pan and a whisk!
Don’t believe me? Click the link here for my tried and true goat milk ice cream recipe. It will be your new favorite!
6. Make Coffee Creamer with Extra Milk
For a rich and decadent creamer, you can skim cream from the top of your fresh milk. With the amount of butterfat in my Nubian milk, this is easy to do. Alternately, you can use whole milk and make delicious creamer without all of the unnecessary junk you get in the store-bought stuff.
Here is my recipe for Amaretto Goat’s Milk Coffee Creamer, you can customize it to make your own favorite flavor too!
7. Make Pudding with Extra Milk
I buy a few instant pudding packages whenever I go grocery shopping. Instant pudding is not the healthiest, but for me it is a quick and easy treat and a good way to use up an extra two cups of milk.
Making pudding from scratch is on my to-do list, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. If you have a good recipe for homemade pudding that I should try, leave it in the comments below!
8. Make Hamburger Helper with Extra Milk
On a busy night, a pound of venison and a box of hamburger helper is my go-to. Our family’s favorite one, Deluxe Beef Stroganoff, uses 2 ¼ cups of milk. Again, not the most healthy, but convenient and a good way to use up extra milk.
Other dinner ideas that incorporate milk are pancakes, potato soup, and chicken alfredo. After dinner, using dairy in dessert is the easy part, I’ve already mentioned ice cream and pudding but there are endless ways to use milk in sweet treats.
9. Make Soap with Extra Milk
As I mentioned, I have a soap making business. I make beautiful, moisturizing cold process soap with goat milk, lye, and oils. If you’ve never made soap before, you do need some supplies. Click here to learn about the equipment you should have on hand before you get started.
For soap making recipes and ingredients, I recommend using Brambleberry.com. They have balanced recipes you can try or modify, lye and fragrance calculators, and even kits if you want to simplify the process.
10. Take a Milk Bath in Extra Milk
If you have so much extra milk that you could take a bath in it, then you should! A milk bath is a real thing, I’ve done it. A milk bath is relaxing and will leave your skin feeling so soft. All you need is to add a cup or two of whole milk to your warm bath water.
To make it even more luxurious, you can also add baking soda or Epsom salt, essential oils, and dried flowers!
11. Give your Pets a Treat with Extra Milk
If you have just a little too much milk, maybe just more than what can fit in a jar, give it to your pets. Cats are known to love milk, but dogs enjoy a bowl of milk just as much.
When I start milking, I give the first squirts of stripped milk to my dogs in case the teat orifice is dirty even after cleaning the udder. They beg for it!
12. Feed Pigs with Extra Milk
Did you know you can turn extra milk into ham and bacon? We do it every year. We raise pigs for our freezer and my kids also show them in 4-H. We use extra goat milk to help fatten up and put weight on the hogs. In addition to their feed, we give them milk (or whey from cheesemaking) and they suck it down.
The pigs absolutely love milk! Whenever one of my milk goats sticks her foot into the milk pail during milking, it goes straight to the pigs and it makes me happy it doesn’t go to waste.
13. Donate Extra Milk to an Animal Rescue
A lot of mammals (humans included) thrive on goat’s milk. I have donated milk that was used for orphaned puppies, kittens, rabbits, fawns, and opossums. Spring and summer seem to be the time when milk is needed the most.
If you have extra milk, get in touch with your local agencies to see if you can help them out!
14. Freeze Extra Milk for Later Use
I freeze quite a bit of milk so that I can make soap year-round. When my dairy goats are dried up for the last two or three months of pregnancy, I wouldn’t have any milk to use if I didn’t plan ahead. I measure out and freeze milk for soap making in ice cube trays so that it is easier for me to work with.
You can use thawed, frozen milk for many of the same things you would use fresh milk for, just realize the texture isn’t going to be exactly the same.
15. Dehydrate Extra Milk for Later Use
I just got some silicone trays for my dehydrator and I am going to try and dehydrate milk! My plan is to dry it in the dehydrator, grind it into a fine powder, and then store it to use later.
I want to try and reconstitute my own powdered milk to see how it tastes and also use it for making bath bombs. I will report back and update this post once I know how it works!
Don’t let an abundance of milk worry you, as you can see, there are lots of ways to put it to good use. If you have other ideas for utilizing extra milk, I would love to hear about them in the comments.
Mother, farmer, author, and teacher by trade… She loves tending to things and watching them grow!