30 Uses for Buttermilk (Because That Half-Full Carton Has Been in Your Fridge for a Week)

Think of this as the dinner-party-ready upgrade to traditional cornbread. The buttermilk makes it tangy and tender, and the colorful toppings make it shine.

Little known fact: Along with adding tang, the acid in buttermilk reacts with baking soda to give cakes like this one their lofty rise. Now you know.

It’s the buttermilk that makes these decadent pancakes pillowy soft and fluffy (and the Nutella that makes them irresistible).

Jake Cohen’s secret to extra-tender roast chicken? Marinate it in buttermilk.

Can’t choose between a sweet breakfast and a savory one? Now you don’t have to.

The trick to getting a crispy crust on this tangy cornbread is to preheat your skillet until it’s piping hot before pouring in the batter.

There’s only a small amount of buttermilk in this recipe, but it makes all the difference for light—not heavy—doughnut bites.

One of our all-time favorite uses for leftover buttermilk? Homemade ranch dressing. This version has tahini for an unexpected twist.

A cobbler is basically just jammy fruit topped with buttermilk biscuits, and that is a very good thing.

You can’t make fried chicken without dredging it in buttermilk, right?

You don’t need a county fair (or a deep fryer) to make funnel cakes at home. These babies are as easy as pancakes, promise.

Top of the muffin to you!

For times when you don’t feel like flipping flapjacks by the stove, there’s a sheet tray waiting in the wings.

This impossibly airy (and surprisingly easy) masterpiece really takes the cake, if you catch our drift.

They’re spicy, sweet and way too tasty to save for just Christmas morning.

Oh look, our two favorite morning treats got together and made something delicious.

A mixture of hot sauce and, yep, buttermilk make the marinade for this classic fried chicken. Even better, there’s buttermilk in the waffles too, so you can use it all up at once.

What are johnnycakes, you ask? They’re Southern-style cornmeal pancakes…also known as genius.

This homemade green goddess dressing is almost too easy to make, thanks to your handy food processor.

Are you sick of pancakes yet? No, because that’s just impossible.

OK, we admit that they’re basically adult chicken nuggets. But we bet you can’t eat just one.

Waffle batters don’t always call for buttermilk, but here it plays up the savory quality quite nicely.

So apple pie and buttermilk biscuits walked into a bar…

We love bloomin’ onions and we don’t care who knows it, so we’re making them at home.

Every time we ask ourselves, “Is it a pie, a cookie or a cake?” (And then we eat one before we can figure out the answer.)

A cinnamon-spiced Bundt cake is hard to improve, until you add chocolate chunks and a chocolate glaze and realize what you had been missing out on.

This pretty loaf cake leans on the healthy-ish, not-too-sweet side of the spectrum, which is great because we’re helping ourselves to two slices.

You barely have to lift a finger to make this classic dessert. The added buttermilk ensures that the biscuits will be delicate and light—not overcooked hockey pucks.

This white gravy is made with half-and-half, but you could swap in buttermilk for extra tang if you wanted.

When all else fails, cover everything in sweetened coconut flakes and call it a day.