Alton Brown's Secret Ingredient For A Tangy Peach Lassi

If you are in a rut and looking for an alternative to your daily green dream smoothie, borrow a page from Alton Brown and try your hand at making a lassi. A lassi is a traditional Indian drink that uses yogurt as its base. Additionally, it blends water, sweeteners, spices, and even fruit to create a yummy sip with a creamy texture. This drink can be sweet or savory, but they are always delicious and refreshing. When Brown makes his version of his favorite peach lassi, the "Good Eats" host strays from the classic ingredients and throws in some frozen buttermilk lassi ice cubes to the mix to create a tangy smack.

In an Instagram post, Brown explained that buttermilk gives this drink a nice "Southern spin." That said, if you have never tasted buttermilk, you may need to prep your taste buds and your nose. It can have a pungent smell, and its taste can be sour and slightly acidic. But that tanginess is a very similar taste to what you experience when you eat unflavored yogurt. Buttermilk just has a little more oomph to it. So, how do these buttermilk lassi ice cubes come into existence?

Alton Brown first makes a mango buttermilk lassi because as he explains on his website, "My favorite homemade version is built instead on buttermilk, which I always seem to have left over from biscuit-making, and mangoes, whose funky terpene flavors (kinda like pinesap) balance the buttermilk's acidic snap." For this lassi, in addition to the buttermilk and mango, he uses grated ginger, chile powder, a pinch of salt, and mixes it all up in a blender. The end result is a sweet, lush drink with a little zest and a little heat. After he makes his mango buttermilk lassi, he freezes the leftovers and uses them in his peach lassi, which uses yogurt as its base.

How does the buttermilk affect this drink? It will change the texture of your lassi to a certain degree, giving it a more liquid-like quality. While buttermilk is a derivation of milk that results during butter production, it has a much thinner consistency than yogurt. However, it is important to note that most buttermilk you find in grocery stores is cultured. Cultured buttermilk is made when active bacteria are added to milk, heated, and fermented to produce a liquid with a thick, velvety texture and a sharp taste. So, what happens when you combine buttermilk lassi with a lassi made with yogurt?

As mentioned, yogurt and buttermilk are alike. Yogurt also starts with fermenting milk but with different cultures in the form of Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. These cultures produce lactic acid, helping to create a thicker, denser, and slightly sweeter end product when compared to buttermilk. The good news is their tastes do not clash, allowing Alton Brown to bring the two together in a unique way for his peachy version of this drink.

To make his peach lassi, Brown uses frozen peaches and cantaloupe, yogurt, ginger, turmeric, and almond milk. He also adds several cubes of his buttermilk mango lassi cubes and whips it up into a frenzy until it is smooth. Drink it with or without a straw. 

Making a buttermilk lassi couldn't be easier, and if peach is not in your flavor line-up, you can use whatever fruits — fresh or frozen — you have on hand. Try swapping out the yogurt for buttermilk in your favorite mango lassi or pineapple lassi if you find yourself with a little extra of this dairy the next time you are making buttermilk pancakes or buttermilk pie. You will be out of your smoothie rut and into a buttermilk lassi rhythm in no time.