We love it when you send us recipes!
We interviewed Vivian Lucero from Otis, Oregon in April (click here). She’s a gourmet cook and a master home cheese maker. We’re delighted that she shared her recipe with us and we can’t wait to try it. Enjoy!
From Vivian…
Living at the coast we are a tourist destination, so we tend to get our shopping and errands done in town before the droves of tourist come for holiday weekends and then we stay home until they leave. This Labor Day weekend I decided to make Jim’s Farmstead Cheese.
When you make a lot of cheese, you have a lot of whey. I give it away if I can. I cook with some if I can, and I freeze it but I just don’t have enough freezer space to save all the whey. Unfortunately, we don’t have any animals we can feed it to.
I pay $8/gallon for good farm milk and it just kills me to have to throw out the whey. So Whey-st not!! I discovered I could make caramel sauce or caramel with whey!!! OMG. Do you know how much it costs to buy caramel sauce?
It was a fun and fruitful experiment over the weekend. I made an amazing caramel sauce with my whey. Caramel is traditionally made with heavy cream, sugar and butter. I could not believe how good this sauce came out using whey and not cream. It has to be so much healthier right?
AND, I also made it in my crock pot! Initially when I began to make it in a pot, I found that it required tending constantly to keep it from boiling over and/or sticking to the bottom of the pan and burning. So, I reduced the whey to half the volume and then I put it in my crock pot to complete the cooking. The results were amazing!!! Of course, I can’t take credit for this discovery because I did find several articles on the web for making caramel with whey. But I adapted it to work for me. I made caramel sauce, but if you continue to reduce the mixture, you can make caramel candy.
I did search your website and found something you don’t have on there; Whey Caramel!!! I hope you will share this with your readers because it’s the one of the best WHEYS, I have found to use my whey!!!
I documented the process with photos and have included the recipe. The recipe calls for 2 quarts of whey but I had 1-1/2 gallons so I multiplied it and probably got a quart plus of caramel sauce. Give it try! You won’t be sorry. There are so many delicious things you can do with caramel sauce besides eating it with a spoon!
Whey-st not, want not!
Vivian
Vivian’s Whey Caramel (So simple!)
2 quarts whey (any whey – sweet or acid)
2 cups sugar
4 oz. butter
1 TB vanilla extract
pinch of salt
Place whey in a deep pot (to keep from boiling over) and simmer, stirring often until reduced by half.
Strain whey in a colander lined with cheese cloth (I decided to do this on my own when I saw bits of curd still in the whey) and return to a clean pot or crock pot.
Add sugar.
If cooking on stove, simmer slowly while stirring to keep from boiling over. I decided to cook in my crock pot so I didn’t have to tend to it. It took about 8 hours in the crock pot.
To make sauce, reduce to a thick syrup consistency then add butter, vanilla and salt.
Continue to cook until you reach the consistency you want.
Skim off any foam from caramel.
Sauce can be cooked down further to make caramel candy. I did not try this as I just wanted to make the sauce.
Lisa says
I tried this with whey from goat’s milk. It didn’t thicken easily, and by the time it did, it was very dark and rather bitter. I hope to try it with whey from cow’s milk at some point in the future.
Vivian Lucero says
I think it must be something in the goat’s milk. I made some with half and half goat and cow whey and it also was not as good. It wasn’t as much bitter as it was too acidic. I think the best sauce is from Cow’s whey and from cheese with lower acidity. The first batch I made was with whey made from Jim’s Farmstead cheese and it was the best. I think even a formage blanc whey would be good as it is mild. Give it another try if you can because it’s well worth it when it comes out great. I have give lots away already and the comments have all been good. Good luck and thanks for the feedback. It’s all an experiment right!
Although I usually put my whey into the garden, I decided to give this a try. Previously, I’ve made the Norwegian brown cheese, but it’s an acquired taste, so didn’t re-make it.
I had about a gallon and a half of whey from making Dunlop and decided to give it a try. I followed all your excellent instructions, except that I cut the sugar and butter down by 1/3 and didn’t triple the vanilla, because I make my own and it’s stronger than store-bought. I ended up with just under 3 pints of sauce.
I brought a jar to a friend who’s a really foodie. She loved it. Even with straining through a cheesecloth, there remained a bit of texture, but she didn’t find it bothersome and really liked how light it was. She said normally caramel will coat her throat, but this didn’t, I expect because it has no cream. No idea on the calorie count, but I think replacing cream, even with concentrated whey, has to be less calorie-intensive. Perhaps it might even have a little protein. Can there be such a thing as a healthy caramel sauce? Wouldn’t that be awesome? LOL.
In any case, I left her happy and with plans for any number of recipes where she could use this excellent sauce. With the holidays coming up, I’ll be making more sauce over the next months. My garden will have to wait until spring for my leftover whey. Thank you so much for sharing. Cheers.
I was very excited to see this recipe. Just tried it with some whey from making chevre. Despite all the sugar and the long caramelization process, the first and quite overpowering flavor is tartness. I get a little butterscotch-type flavor at the end, but it’s really pretty sour. Could this be the result of using whey from a fresh cheese rather than an aged variety? My chevre is quite mild and not goaty. I’d probably give this recipe another try if I ever had any whey from cow’s milk, but I won’t be doing it again with chevre whey unless someone has any ideas about what happened.
Hi Eva. I did find that the caramel results will depend on what type of whey is produced from cheeses. Some whey is more acidic than others. My second batch from a chèvre blend produced a more “sour” flavor but it wasn’t bad. I think a milder cows milk cheese whey might make the best caramel sauce. The only “whey” to know is to experiment! Don’t give up. It’s well worth a good sauce.
What a Great Idea ! Just as a suggestion…Can you do the print in black ? This gray is very hard to read ! Thank You for this great recipe !
Or maybe a bolder font ! :}
Have you checked out Norwegian Brown Cheese? Similar idea!
My neighbor’s wife is from Norway and introduced me to that cheese; gjetost I believe. Very interesting flavor. It was years before I started making cheese. I will have to revisit it. Thanks for the comment.
Thank you! As a cheese-making newbie and a caramel lover, this is a perfect
way to enjoy whey.
Thanks Rose. It is delicious and so easy to make. I just made another batch of cheese yesterday and have a gallon of whey. I’m making more caramel sauce today! One thing, I probably should have noted in the article, if you do make it, put it in a jar and not a bottle with a small neck like the photo shows. I found out after I refrigerated it, it wouldn’t pour very well. Best to stir it all up and scoop out with a spoon. Also it does need refrigeration because of the butter and no preservatives.
OMG-that looks TooOOOOOO yummy!
And you look so sweet and happy!
Woo hoo!
Vivian I noticed you put the sauce in a bottle. What is the shelf life and does it need refrigerated?
Thanks
Deborah
Hi Deborah. See my comment to Rose above. I discovered after the fact, the long neck bottle was not a good idea. Yes, it should be refrigerated since there is butter and no preservatives in the recipe. I’m making another batch today from whey I have from yesterday’s cheese making! It’s great on ice cream, apple pie and ice cream, I love a little over my fruit and yogurt in the morning. I made a blueberry/peach cobbler for a dinner party and drizzled it with caramel. So many things you can do with it. AND, I have given small jars away to friends. Enjoy!
Thank you Vivian, I am in the process of making cheese right now. I will not have to figure out what to do with my whey. I love these types of stories.
Hi Zazzi! Thanks for your comment! I hope you enjoy this easy recipe and the best “whey” to use whey in my opinion. Please see my reply to comments above for a couple of more tips.
Hi Regina. I’m so glad you made the sauce. I thought also it might be good to cut sugar but I didn’t know if that would affect the texture or basically keep it from thickening. It’s really sweet so a little goes a long way. Next time I will cut sugar. I noticed after the fact that if you remove the layer that rises to the top after it’s been refrigerated, there is not grainy texture. That must come from the butter or residual curd that rises. I have shared it with many and they loved it. I made some chèvre over the weekend and sweetened a little with the caramel and served it with sliced pears and apples. What a treat. So many uses for it. I too have given some away and everyone has loved it. There are 66 calories in one cup of whey compared to 469 in one cup of heavy cream. If you calculate butter and sugar and number of servings per batch, you can probably deduce that this could be considered “healthier” 😁 One could even experiment with alternative sweetness like agave for instance. In any case it was a good and delicious experiment!
Last batch I made from a buttermilk cultured cheese I noticed had a little more acidity to the sauce. So one may find some wheys make a better sauce than others.
Happy cheese making!
Vivian
I love new ideas to whey-st not! Thanks!!
Hi Margaret, thanks for your comment! Hope you enjoy it. See my comments to others above for a couple more tips. Be sure to refrigerate!