The Only Ingredient You Need To Transform Heavy Cream Into Sour Cream

If you don't have sour cream on hand, you can approximate the same texture and flavor with a simple substitute: heavy cream combined with lemon juice.

Use one to two teaspoons of lemon juice per cup of heavy cream. Up to a quarter of a cup of milk per cup of heavy cream can also help to better approximate the consistency.

Cover the mixture loosely with a kitchen cloth and let it rest for eight hours, though a full 24 hours is preferable. Keep it somewhere cool away from direct light.

After the overnight thickening process is complete, keep your homemade sour cream in the fridge in a sealed container, just as you would with the store-bought stuff.