Sour cream is used in the kitchen for cooking and baking. But how long does it keep, how do you store it correctly and is there a vegan alternative? You can find out here.

Perhaps you have already used sour cream for cooking or baking. But do you actually know what the difference is between sour cream, crème fraîche, and sour cream?

All three products are acidified milk products and are made from cream. The only difference is in the fat content: sour cream contains at least 10 percent, sour cream 24 to 28 percent, and crème fraîche at least 30 percent fat.

This is how you store sour cream correctly

You may have noticed that there are two different types of sour cream. You can find one type in the refrigerated section, the other type in the normal range in the supermarket. As with many other milk products, the sour cream that is not in the refrigerated section is ultra-high temperature. This makes it last longer. Depending on whether you buy the sour cream chilled or not, you should store it at home accordingly.

Your fridge has different temperatures in different sections. If you know where it is best to store which food, you extend the shelf life.

The lower boxes in your fridge are suitable for fruit and vegetables and are around six to nine degrees Celsius. The compartments above increase with height: the lowest compartment is two to three degrees Celsius, the middle one is about five degrees Celsius and the top one is about eight degrees Celsius.
You should store sour cream (like other milk products) in the middle range at four to five degrees Celsius. Incidentally, you should not store open, sensitive products (such as open sour cream) in the refrigerator door, as the room temperature can have the greatest effect there when opening.

How long does sour cream keep?

As with most products in the supermarket, you will also find a best-before date (MHD) on the sour cream packaging. Many use this date as a guide and throw away everything that is after the specified date. But most of the products are also edible and healthy. The same applies to Schmand.

Before you throw a pack of sour cream in the trash, open it and go through three steps: look, smell and taste. Then you can judge whether you can eat the sour cream without any problems or rather dispose of it. A study by Greenpeace magazine found that some products were still edible more than half a year after the best-before date. So it’s worth taking a closer look.

Unopened, sour cream can still be enjoyed months after the best-before date. If you have already opened the package, the sour cream can be kept for a few days afterwards. If you seal the cup airtight again (for example with a lid or a beeswax cloth), the sour cream can be good for even longer. If you see mold or blisters forming on the sour cream and a musty, alcoholic smell coming your way, you should dispose of the sour cream.

Are there alternatives to sour cream?

Classic alternatives to sour cream are crème fraîche, sour cream or cream cheese. Depending on what you want to cook or bake, you can also use one of these products. For example, if you have cream cheese in the fridge that needs to go, you could use that instead of buying new sour cream. This is how you prevent food waste.

However, you should make sure that the fat content of your product fits your project. For example, you shouldn’t put a sour milk product with a fat content below 28 percent in a boiling liquid, or it will flocculate. For products based on milk, we recommend paying attention to organic quality and regionality. In this way you avoid chemical-synthetic pesticides in cow feed, prophylactic antibiotics in the animals and long transport routes with high CO2 emissions.

So far, vegan sour cream alternatives are not directly available in the supermarket. However, there are some vegan alternatives that lean towards crème fraîche, sour cream, or cream cheese. from dr Oetker, for example, has the soy-based cream VEGA, which is intended to replace crème fraîche. You can use them for cooking or baking. Vegan cream alternatives are Rama’s lentil-based cooking cream or Alpro’s soy-based cooking creams. Coconut milk or plant-based cream are always good vegan cream alternatives. Vegan cream cheese is now often available as a private label from various supermarkets.

For cold dishes, soy yoghurt is also a good vegan sour cream substitute. But you shouldn’t heat it up, otherwise it will flake. A squeeze of lemon juice gives you the tart taste that sour cream usually has.