When I was a child the thought of drinking powdered milk sent chills up my spine. I couldn’t stand the stuff, and always knew when my mom made powdered milk in “real” milk jug. Now that I am older and wiser (I hope) I see the wisdom in my mother’s ways. Even as I type this my oldest daughter is telling me how powdered milk tastes weird, and she only likes it on cereal. I find the fact that she likes it on cereal to be a small victory!
I did some quick calculations and found that powdered milk costs approximately $2 a gallon. Depending on where you live and how much you are paying for milk that could be a savings of up to $3 a gallon for milk. When cooking, I always use powdered milk. Depending on the recipe, sometimes I put the powder and the water with the other ingredients, but other times I premix the milk. When we are running low on milk I will also make powdered milk and mix it with the milk I have on hand to stretch it for another day. We also use pre-made powdered milk in our smoothies and do not notice a taste difference.
One secret to making powdered milk taste better is to mix it in a blender on low. If you mix it on high it becomes way too foamy. Then refrigerate the milk overnight. This does make the milk taste better, I promise. Remember that powdered milk is fat free milk, so it will never have that creamy whole milk taste.
I encourage any skeptics to give powdered milk a try, if nothing else, use it for cooking and you won’t notice any difference at all.
For more kitchen tips stop by Tammy’s blog, and for more frugal tips visit Mary.
Nancy says
I did an experiment with my family – I made up powdered milk, got it good and cold overnight, and put it into the milk container. No one noticed. (Disclaimer – we always drink nonfat milk!) Even if you only use it in cooking, you can save a lot. Some families use half powdered milk and half purchased milk, too.
Unfortunately we are not very healthy people – we don’t drink much milk except on cereal – we do love our cheese, but powdered cheese is really disgusting.
Jenny Opperman says
I also use powdered milk for my kids cereal. They still don’t know the difference. I also use it for cooking….much cheaper and so convenient when you are low on milk! Now, if I could just get myself to use it on my cereal….he he he. I grew up witha real milk cow for my milk….too much of the good stuff makes it hard to go back:)
Donna says
I love powdered milk for bread recipes and homemade yogurt and some other things….
I’ve been wanting to use this AS MILK but thought I couldn’t pull it off! You abd Nancy (above) have challenged me…think I’ll have to try it:-)!
Nancy says
My mom used powder milk for cooking/baking and I do that also. I’ve never been able to tell the difference (unless I have to actually drink it; just can’t do that).
CC says
I really need to do a price comparison for powdered milk. I’d be happy to use it for cooking. We only drink organic milk. I wonder if they have organic powdered milk and how much that costs???
Shelly G says
I am off to the kitchen to make powdered milk into milk… I have several packages that someone gave me and I have been putting off making it and mixing it with the regular milk. I grew up on powdered milk… One thing I remember is we never ran out of milk… My mom was so organized 🙂
BarbaraLee Malikowski says
I did the same thing your mother did. But we don’t drink much milk either. I make more pancakes etc. instead of cold cereal.
A gal. of milk here in MN is $3.49 give or take.
You can get cal. from other foods.
Tim says
I was wondering if you could take powered milk camping
and use it with cereial. I don’t want to take regular milk
seeing it would spoil. Do you have to refrigerate milk that
is made from powered milk?
thanks