The whey you like it

If you have ever made homemade cheese – whether fresh cheese like ricotta or a firm cheese like cheddar – you have probably been faced with the dilemma of what to do with the whey that remains after straining the curds. Zoe Williams recently confronted this issue after she took a cheesemaking course, and she found several uses for this byproduct.

One use that might come to mind is making ricotta cheese, which is traditionally made from the whey leftover from other types of cheese. But unless you have industrial-size quantities of whey, it is not practical. There are other great uses for it, however. You can mix it 50:50 with water and boil pasta in it. As Williams said after trying it, the end result was “unspeakably good: it had a bizarre depth and richness and felt utterly complete.”

Instead of pasta, if you boil vegetables in a whey/water mixture, they will come out with richer flavor and even brighter colors. The effect is less pronounced with sweet vegetables, but they are still improved with this technique. You can also add whey to the soaking water for beans, as well as putting it into soup for a little flavor boost. I have used whey as a substitute for buttermilk in my pancake mix with excellent results. Just don’t throw it a-whey.