What Is Evaporated Milk & How to Make Evaporated Milk

One of the secret weapons we use to make some of our recipes so good is a little can of goodness called evaporated milk. Keep reading to learn exactly what is evaporated milk. We also fill you in on how to make evaporated milk.  

 

What is Evaporated Milk?

Before we learn how to make evaporated milk, let’s focus on what is evaporated milk exactly. Evaporated milk is regular milk that has been heated so that around 60% of the water content disappears or “evaporates”. With a slightly caramelized flavor, it’s then treated like regular milk. It’s homogenized and goes through treatments to rid the milk of any harmful little buggers like bacteria and other microorganisms. They call that pasteurization and sterilization. 

So you might be wondering right now… why not just use milk?  

Milk doesn’t keep as long as we’d like and because of how they process it, evaporated milk lasts much longer in its can. It can typically be good for up to two years. Evaporated milk was used back when regular fresh milk was hard to come by. 

By the way, if the evaporated milk is dark yellow or brown when you open it… don’t use it. 

In a pinch, if you don’t have any milk for a recipe, you can use evaporated milk as a substitute.

After grabbing the canned evaporated milk from the pantry give it a good shake, open it up, and add one and a half cans of water to each can of evaporated milk to get it back to milk consistency for the recipe.

This reconstituted evaporated milk is a good substitute for milk in hot drinks like coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. If you like the creaminess of half and half, then just use the evaporated milk without the water right out of the can for these hot drinks.  

What is Evaporated Milk Used For?

Evaporated milk is used for all sorts of things. As mentioned, you can use it to give body to your morning smoothie or to thicken up and sweeten your morning coffee or oatmeal.

You can use it in plenty of desserts, like our pumpkin cream cheese pie and pecan apple cobbler. Top your favorite dessert with whipped cream made with evaporated milk. You can also use it in place of sweetened condensed milk in any recipe as well.

Besides sweets, it’s great in pretty much anything that you want to make rich and creamy. This might be our homemade mashed potatoes, salad dressings to make them creamy, pasta sauces, chowders, and even soups like our loaded potato soup.

What’s the difference between evaporated milk and condensed milk?

Basically, condensed milk is sweetened evaporated milk. In many countries, evaporated milk is actually called unsweetened condensed milk, just to make life confusing! They add sugar to evaporated milk to make it sweet. So basically if you want rich creamy AND sweet, your choice would be condensed milk. But don’t just use condensed milk willy nilly in any ole recipe that calls for evaporated milk. For example, if you used condensed milk for evaporated milk in a mac and cheese dish, you may or may not be invited back to the church potluck.

But for things like dulce de leche, it’s the perfect ingredient to create a creamy delicious texture. 

And last but not least… How to Make Evaporated Milk.

Now, let’s learn how to make evaporated milk. On medium heat, bring milk to a boil. Lower the heat to simmer and stir often to avoid burning on the bottom of the pan. Keep that heat low.

Keep stirring and simmering until the milk is cooked down to about 30% of its volume. This can take anywhere from 25-40 minutes. So for 4 cups of milk, you would reduce it down to 1.25 to 1.5 cups. The more it’s reduced the thicker it gets. And it will thicken a bit as it cools. Stir frequently to avoid burning.

The milk will become slightly darker as it reduces and becomes more dense/creamy. Once reduced down to 30%, pass through a sieve to remove the fat or you can just skim the fat off the top before pouring.

Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. I typically use a mason jar but use whatever works for you.

As I mention in the recipe post below, you can use any milk to make homemade evaporated milk, including your favorite nut milk like almond milk, as well as soy milk, oat milk, or rice milk. Yep, dairy free evaporated milk is a thing!