Heavy cream substitutes

Heavy cream substitutes — 4 options, ranked, with the exact amount

Also called heavy whipping cream, whipping cream, double cream, thickened cream, 36% cream

Use thisBest of 4 options

Use Half and half + butter

Per 1 cup heavy cream

¾ cup half-and-half + ¼ cup melted butter

It depends on whether the recipe whips the cream or cooks it. If it is cooked into a sauce, soup or batter, use ¾ cup half-and-half plus ¼ cup melted butter per cup of heavy cream. If it has to whip into peaks, no dairy swap on this page will do it — you need 36% fat or more, and chilled coconut cream is the only common stand-in.

Verdict —: Tweak it
The tweak —: Melt the butter, let it cool for a minute so it is warm rather than hot, then whisk it into the half-and-half; if it is added boiling it will set into flecks.
Best for —: when the cream is simmered rather than whipped
Pantry —: Likely in your cupboard

Checked 22 Jul 2026 · no sponsored swaps

But first: what’s the heavy cream doing?

Pick your case

Is the recipe going to whip this cream, or cook it?

You need 36% fat or more, cold. Half-and-half, milk, evaporated milk and any milk-plus-butter mix are all under 30% and will stay liquid no matter how long you beat them. Chilled full-fat coconut cream is the one common ingredient that whips; chilled evaporated milk whips into a soft foam that collapses within about half an hour.
Notes on coconut cream (chilled) or evaporated milk
Same amount
Fat is doing the work, and you can rebuild it. Half-and-half plus melted butter is the closest; whole milk plus butter also works but is thinner, so give the sauce a couple of extra minutes to reduce. Add it off a hard boil and stir it in at the end.
Notes on half and half + butter or whole milk + butter · Full guide: Pasta or Soup
¾ cup half-and-half + ¼ cup melted butter per 1 cup heavy cream
This is the forgiving case. Evaporated milk straight from the can is the easiest swap here and needs nothing added. Half-and-half works too, with a slightly less tender crumb.
Notes on evaporated milk or half and half + butter · Full guide: Baking
Same amount
There is no swap for it. Buy the small carton, use less of it, or serve the fruit with yogurt and call it what it is.

Do not choose by what looks thickest in the fridge. Ask one question: does the recipe whip this cream or cook it? If it whips, you need 36% fat or more and only chilled coconut cream gets you there. If it cooks, fat is doing the work and you can rebuild it with butter — ¾ cup half-and-half plus ¼ cup melted butter per cup. Everything else on this page is a variation on that one fork.

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Heavy cream is 36-40% fat suspended in water. That fat is what keeps a sauce from breaking when you add acid, what lets the cream reduce and coat a spoon instead of curdling, and what makes the crumb of a scone tender. Above about 30% fat it will also hold whipped air; below that it will not, whatever you do to it.

Fat & richnessprimary

At 36-40% fat it coats the tongue and buffers acid and heat, which is why a cream sauce takes lemon juice or a hard simmer without going grainy while milk curdles.

Moisture & hydrationsecondary

The other 60% is water, so cream also hydrates flour in scones and biscuits — pull the fat up and you have to put liquid back.

Aerationsecondary

Whisking breaks up the fat globules so they link into a mesh around air bubbles; that mesh only forms above roughly 30% fat, which is the single reason milk will never whip.

Thickeningprimary

Simmer it and water leaves while the fat stays, so the sauce goes from watery to spoon-coating in a few minutes with no flour or cornstarch involved.

Every option, one card

Ranked · per 1 cup heavy cream

Heavy Cream substitutes compared
#	Substitute	Instead of 1 cup heavy cream	Verdict
1	Half and half + butterwhen the cream is simmered rather than whipped	¾ cup + ¼ cup butterTweak it	Tweak it
2	Whole milk + butterwhen you have milk and butter and nothing else	¾ cup + ¼ cup melted butterYou'll taste it	You'll taste it
3	Evaporated milkwhen you want no extra steps and no extra bowls	1 cup, straight from the canYou'll taste it	You'll taste it
4	Coconut cream (chilled)when the recipe must whip and the answer must be dairy-free	1 cup, or the thick layer skimmed off two chilled 13.5 oz cans of full-fat coconut milkYou'll taste it	You'll taste it
Not a swap	Milk	not a swap — no amount of plain milk substitutes for heavy cream; add butter as above, or change the recipeNot for this	Not for this

What changesWhat changes, option by option4 options

Half and half + butter

very close, with a faint cooked-butter note

The closest cooked-recipe stand-in: half-and-half brings some cream fat already and the butter tops it up to roughly 27% fat.

Covers: Fat & richness; Moisture & hydration; Thickening
Misses: Aeration — not covered

What these mean

Amount: ¾ cup half-and-half + ¼ cup (4 tbsp) butter for 1 cup heavy cream
Then: melt the butter, let it cool for a minute so it is warm rather than hot, then whisk it into the half-and-half; if it is added boiling it will set into flecks
Best for: when the cream is simmered rather than whipped, pan sauces and cream soups, quiche and custard bases
Texture: slightly thinner in the mouth; a reduced sauce coats the spoon a little less heavily
Look: the sauce is a shade paler and glossier, and if the butter went in too hot you will see tiny yellow specks on the surface
Prep: Melt the butter, let it cool for a minute so it is warm rather than hot, then whisk it into the half-and-half; if it is added boiling it will set into flecks.
Pantry: Likely in your cupboard
Contains: dairy

Add it off the boil and keep the pan below a hard bubble — at 27% fat it is less curdle-proof than real cream.
If the sauce needs to reduce, give it 2-3 minutes longer than the recipe says; there is more water here than in heavy cream.
Using salted butter adds about ¼ teaspoon of salt per ¼ cup, so taste before you salt the sauce.

Do the arithmetic and you can see why it cooks well and will not whip: ¾ cup half-and-half carries about 20 g of fat, the butter adds about 45 g, and 65 g of fat in a 237 g cup is about 27%.

This mix lands near 27% fat, under the roughly 30% whipping threshold. Cook with it; never try to whip it.

Whole milk + butter

thinner and milkier, less rounded

The version most people already have the ingredients for, and the one most often oversold — it lands around 21% fat, not 36%.

Covers: Fat & richness; Moisture & hydration
Misses: Aeration — not covered; Thickening — not covered

What these mean

Amount: ¾ cup whole milk + ¼ cup (4 tbsp) melted butter for 1 cup heavy cream
Then: whisk the warm melted butter into the milk in a thin stream so it disperses instead of pooling on top
Best for: when you have milk and butter and nothing else, baked dishes where cream is one liquid among several, gravies and chowders you can thicken separately
Texture: watery unless you thicken it; it will not reduce to a coating sauce on its own
Look: the sauce stays loose and slides off the pasta or spoon instead of clinging, and melted butter beads on the surface as it sits
Prep: Whisk the warm melted butter into the milk in a thin stream so it disperses instead of pooling on top.
Pantry: Likely in your cupboard
Contains: dairy

Expect to thicken the sauce yourself: whisk 1 teaspoon cornstarch into 1 tablespoon cold milk per cup and stir it in, then simmer 1 minute.
Keep the heat gentle and add any acid (lemon, wine, tomato) at the very end — at 21% fat this mixture curdles far more readily than cream.
Whisk again right before pouring; the butter separates back out as it stands.

This is the swap the internet calls a 1:1 replacement for heavy cream. It is not: ¾ cup whole milk has under 6 g of fat, so even with a whole ¼ cup of butter you land near 21%, which is light cream. It is genuinely useful and it genuinely will not whip.

Cooked recipes only, and only where you can thicken separately. Never in whipped cream, ganache or anything that must set.

Evaporated milk

slightly cooked and sweetish, like the milk in a milky tea

Shelf-stable milk with about 60% of its water boiled off, so it is thicker than milk but still only about 6-7% fat.

Covers: Fat & richness; Moisture & hydration
Misses: Aeration — not covered; Thickening — not covered

What these mean

Amount: 1 cup evaporated milk, straight from the can for 1 cup heavy cream
Best for: when you want no extra steps and no extra bowls, pumpkin pie and baked custards, mac and cheese and scalloped potatoes
Texture: pourable and smooth but not rich; no cream weight on the tongue
Look: sauces stay noticeably paler and thinner, and a pie filling sets a little softer with a matte rather than glossy surface
Prep: Use 1 cup evaporated milk, straight from the can.
Pantry: Likely in your cupboard
Contains: dairy

It has a faint caramelised, canned-milk flavour from being heat-sterilised. In a savoury sauce nobody notices; in a delicate panna cotta they do.
It brings no meaningful fat to a reduction, so thicken with 1 teaspoon cornstarch slurried in cold water per cup if the sauce has to coat.

Chilled hard in the freezer for 15-20 minutes and beaten, evaporated milk does whip into a light foam — but it holds for roughly 20-30 minutes and then weeps, so use it on a dessert going straight to the table and nowhere else.

At 6-7% fat this is a milk, not a cream. Fine in baked and cooked dishes, wrong wherever fat is the point.

Coconut cream (chilled)

distinctly coconut; it reads as a flavour choice, not a neutral swap

The one common non-dairy cream with enough fat to actually whip, at roughly 20-25% fat in the solid layer.

Covers: Fat & richness; Aeration; Thickening

What these mean

Amount: 1 cup coconut cream, or the thick layer skimmed off two chilled 13.5 oz cans of full-fat coconut milk for 1 cup heavy cream
Then: chill the can upright overnight, open it without shaking, and spoon off only the solid layer; leave the thin water behind or the whipped cream will not hold
Best for: when the recipe must whip and the answer must be dairy-free, curries and coconut-friendly desserts, ganache and vegan mousse
Texture: thick and rich, close to cream, slightly waxier on the tongue as it cools
Look: whipped coconut cream is bright white and stiffer than dairy whipped cream, and it firms up rather than softens in the fridge
Prep: Chill the can upright overnight, open it without shaking, and spoon off only the solid layer; leave the thin water behind or the whipped cream will not hold.
Suits: vegan, dairy-free
Contains: coconut

Whip it cold, in a bowl you have chilled too, and stop as soon as it holds a peak — coconut fat goes grainy if you keep beating.
Buy full-fat coconut milk or cream, not light: light versions are diluted and will stay liquid.
In a savoury sauce, balance the sweetness with an extra pinch of salt and a squeeze of lime rather than sugar.

Refined coconut oil is nearly flavourless but coconut cream is not — the flavour comes from the milk solids, so there is no version of this swap that tastes neutral.

Use it where coconut belongs. In a delicate vanilla or coffee dessert the flavour takes the dish over.

Milk

thin and washed-out where the dish was meant to taste rich

Listed because it is the first thing everyone reaches for. Whole milk is 3.25% fat against cream's 36-40%, and that gap is the whole ingredient.

Covers: Moisture & hydration
Misses: Fat & richness — not covered; Aeration — not covered; Thickening — not covered

What these mean

Amount: No amount of plain milk substitutes for heavy cream; add butter as above, or change the recipeper 1 cup heavy cream
Best for: when you would rather change the recipe than fake the cream
Texture: watery; nothing coats anything
Look: the sauce separates into a thin white liquid with a grainy curd at the edge of the pan, and it will never hold a whipped peak
Pantry: Likely in your cupboard
Contains: dairy

If milk is truly all you have, use the Whole Milk + Butter row above and thicken with cornstarch.
In a tomato or wine sauce, stir the milk in off the heat at the very end; heat plus acid plus 3.25% fat is exactly how a sauce curdles.

The useful version of this question is the one on our milk page: what is the cream doing? If it is fat, add fat. If it is air, you need 30% fat and you cannot get there from milk.

There is no ratio that fixes this. Milk is not low-fat cream, it is a different ingredient.

Don’t swap it here

3 cases

Whipped cream, chantilly, a chilled mousse, or any frosting that has to hold a piped swirl.Use chilled full-fat coconut cream, or buy a small carton of cream and halve the recipe. Chilled evaporated milk gives a soft foam that lasts about half an hour if the dessert is going straight to the table.
Ganache, caramel, and no-bake fillings that have to set firm enough to slice.Use real cream for these, or switch to a recipe built on evaporated or condensed milk, which is formulated around that water content.
A cream sauce that gets lemon, wine, vinegar or tomato, held at a simmer.Use the half-and-half plus butter mix, add the acid at the very end off the heat, and do not let it boil after that.

Safety

1 note

Diet
Heavy cream is a dairy product. Chilled full-fat coconut cream is the dairy-free and vegan path on this page; every other swap here is dairy.

If it went wrong

3 fixes

The sauce split into thin liquid with grainy white specks.Not enough fat to protect the milk proteins from the acid or the heat, so the proteins clumped.Pull it off the heat straight away. Whisk 1 teaspoon cornstarch into 1 tablespoon cold milk, stir it in and warm gently without boiling; that will bring most sauces back. If it is badly broken, blitz it with a stick blender — smooth but slightly thinner is a better dinner than curdled.
You have been beating it for ten minutes and it is still liquid.The fat is below about 30%, so there is nothing to build a foam with. Beating longer cannot fix a fat percentage.Stop. Pour it into the fridge and serve the dessert with a pourable cream sauce instead, or start again with coconut cream. If it is real cream that will not whip, it is not cold enough — chill the cream, bowl and beaters for 20 minutes and try again.
Whipped cream has gone grainy and yellowish and is starting to look like butter.Over-beaten: the fat network has collapsed and the fat is clumping out of the water.Whisk in 2-3 tablespoons of cold unwhipped cream by hand and it will usually come back to a smooth soft peak. Once it has separated into butter and liquid it is butter, and the only way forward is to keep going and use it as butter.

Measure it

6 measures

1 cup heavy cream240 ml = about 232 g = 8 fl ozIt whips to roughly double its volume, so 1 cup of cream gives about 2 cups whipped.
Heavy cream fat36-40% fatIn the US, cream labelled heavy or heavy whipping must be at least 36% fat.
The fat ladderskim ~0.1% - whole milk 3.25% - evaporated ~6-7% - half-and-half 10-12% - light cream 18-30% - heavy cream 36-40% - butter ~80%Every correction on this page is arithmetic on this one list.
Whipping thresholdabout 30% fat, minimumUnder that figure a cream will not hold air at any speed, temperature or beating time.
Butter as a fat top-up¼ cup butter = 4 tbsp = 57 g = about 45 g of fatButter is about 80% fat and 16-18% water, which is why butter-plus-milk mixes always come out wetter than cream.
Half-and-half + butter, actual fatabout 27%Whole milk + butter lands nearer 21%. Both cook well; neither reaches the whipping threshold.

Questions

6 questions

Can I use milk instead of heavy cream?

In a cooked dish, yes, with a correction: use ¾ cup whole milk plus ¼ cup melted butter per cup of heavy cream, and thicken with 1 teaspoon cornstarch slurried in cold milk if the sauce has to coat a spoon. Be honest about what you get — that mixture is about 21% fat against cream's 36-40%, so it is closer to light cream. In whipped cream, no: milk is 3.25% fat and whipping needs about 30%, so it stays liquid however long you beat it.

What is the best heavy cream substitute for whipping?

Chilled full-fat coconut cream, which is roughly 20-25% fat in the solid layer and does hold a peak. Chill the can upright overnight, spoon off only the thick layer and leave the watery part behind. It tastes clearly of coconut. Evaporated milk chilled hard and beaten gives a soft foam, but it weeps after about 20-30 minutes, so only use it on a dessert going straight to the table.

Can I use half and half instead of heavy cream?

In a cooked recipe, yes — half-and-half is 10-12% fat, so top it up with butter: ¾ cup half-and-half plus ¼ cup melted butter per cup of cream, which lands around 27% fat. Add it off the boil. For whipping, no: 27% is still under the roughly 30% needed to hold air.

Is heavy cream the same as heavy whipping cream, whipping cream or double cream?

Heavy cream and heavy whipping cream are the same thing — both are at least 36% fat in the US, and the labels are used interchangeably. Cream labelled just whipping cream can be a little lighter, around 30-35%, which still whips but gives a softer peak. British double cream is richer, about 48% fat, so it whips faster and over-whips into butter faster too. All of them work anywhere this page says heavy cream.

Why does heavy cream whip when milk does not?

Whipping works by breaking the fat globules so they link up into a mesh that holds air bubbles in place. You need roughly 30% fat for that mesh to form. Heavy cream has 36-40%; whole milk has 3.25%. There is not enough fat in milk to build the structure, so the air escapes as fast as you beat it in.

Can I substitute heavy cream in ganache or a no-bake pie?

Not with a lower-fat dairy. Those recipes set because of a fixed ratio of fat to water, and swapping in half-and-half or milk adds water — the ganache stays a pouring sauce and the pie filling never firms up enough to slice. Use real cream, or switch to a recipe written around evaporated or sweetened condensed milk.

Tips for substituting heavy cream

6 tips

Before anything else, find out whether your recipe whips the cream or cooks it. That one question decides every swap on this page.
The whipping threshold is about 30% fat. Half-and-half (10-12%), evaporated milk (6-7%) and whole milk (3.25%) are all under it and will never hold a peak.
For a cooked sauce, use ¾ cup half-and-half plus ¼ cup melted butter per cup of heavy cream, and add it off the boil.
Let melted butter cool for a minute before whisking it into cold dairy, or it sets into little yellow flecks.
Any swap under about 20% fat will curdle if you add lemon, wine or tomato over heat. Add the acid last, off the heat.
Coconut cream must be chilled overnight and opened without shaking so you can spoon off the solid layer and leave the water behind.

Source — US FDA, Code of Federal Regulations 21 CFR 131 (cream standards of identity) (opens in a new tab)

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