This post originally appeared in the February 14, 2024 edition of The Move, the weekly newsletter full of pro tips and advice from Eater’s dining experts, direct to your inbox. Subscribe now.
I buy creme fraiche once a year, tops. At around $7 for the tiniest tub, it’s not something that really makes sense in my grocery budget, especially in this moment of ever-increasing prices at the supermarket. But once I discovered that this luxurious ingredient is deceptively easy — and cheap — to make at home, it’s something that I now almost always have on hand.
I stumbled upon this ridiculously easy technique while looking for a substitute for creme fraiche when I wanted to make Molly Baz’s Chicken au Poivre. To start, you only need two ingredients: heavy cream and buttermilk. (Considering that an entire pint of heavy cream is cheaper than one of those miniscule tubs of creme fraiche, you’re already saving some cash.) Simply stir the two together — I use this ratio from J. Kenji López-Alt’s method — and leave the mixture out on the counter until it’s thick and luscious. The final project can be refrigerated for at least a week, and it will get just slightly more tangy (in a good way) over the course of a few days.
A couple of caveats: You want to make sure you’re using good buttermilk in this scenario. The skimmed, super-processed stuff doesn’t seem to work as well as thick Bulgarian buttermilk, which produces a rich and tangy creme fraiche in just a matter of hours. If you can’t find good buttermilk, plain whole milk yogurt will also work, though it will likely need a little more time on the counter to really get nice and thick.
When I opened up the container of homemade creme fraiche — a phrase that just feels impossibly fancy and very Ina Garten of me — I felt a little bit like a magician. Whether you’re baking sourdough, preparing a crock of pickles, or, in this case, making creme fraiche, fermentation is one of those food preparations that feels a little special because it’s totally transformative, like you’re making something dramatically better than the sum of its parts.
When making creamy pasta sauces or dips, there’s no one-to-one swap for creme fraiche. You could use sour cream, but it’s thicker and tangier, and Mexican table cream just doesn’t have quite the right texture. Creme fraiche is an ingredient all its own, and it’s worth using when it’s called for — especially when it’s this simple to make at home.
