Kumis substitute

Best substitute

Milk kefir

Use the same amount by volume as the kumis you are replacing

Best for drinking chilled

Close match

Plain unsweetened milk kefir is the substitute, used 1:1, and it is a genuinely good one: kefir is the only common Western dairy product fermented by both bacteria and yeast, so it shares kumis's thin body, sour bite, faint yeasty aroma and gentle fizz. If you cannot get kefir, thin plain yogurt with cold water to a drinkable consistency and add a squeeze of lemon, which gets you the sourness but none of the sparkle. Airan or ayran, salted diluted yogurt, is the closest thing culturally and is what many Central Asian households drink when kumis is out of season.

Other kumis substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Ayran or airan (salted yogurt drink)
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume
Yogurt whisked with cold water and a pinch of salt until pourable, drunk across Turkey and Central Asia.
What changes
Best for
drinking with grilled meat or plov, cooling a chile-heavy meal, serving to guests who avoid alcohol
The everyday stand-in in the region kumis comes from, so it fits the meal even though it is not the same drink. Flavor-wise it is cleanly sour and salted rather than wild and yeasty, and it is completely flat with no fizz, so it tastes tamer and more refreshing where kumis tastes challenging. The salt matters: without it the drink reads as watery yogurt. Start with a quarter teaspoon per cup.
3Plain yogurt thinned with water or milk
Different taste
Use ½ cup yogurt whisked with ½ cup cold water for every cup of kumis
The pantry version, giving you sour cultured dairy at drinking consistency.
What changes
Best for
marinades, batters and doughs, chilled soups, drinking in a pinch
Perfectly serviceable when kumis is an ingredient rather than the point. It brings the same acidity, which is what a marinade or a batter actually wants. As a drink it is noticeably duller: no carbonation, no yeasty note, and a rounder, milkier flavor. A squeeze of lemon juice sharpens it and a splash of sparkling water adds a little life.
4Shubat or camel-milk kefir
Close match
Use the same amount by volume
Fermented camel's milk, made and drunk across the same regions as kumis.
What changes
Best for
drinking, serving as part of a Central Asian meal, any use where kumis is the star
If you can find it, this is the closest match to kumis in spirit and almost as close in flavor: thin, tangy, slightly salty and faintly gamey in a way cow's milk products never are. It is less fizzy and less alcoholic than kumis, since it is usually fermented primarily by bacteria. Availability is the catch outside Central Asia and the Gulf.
5Buttermilk
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume
Cultured pourable milk, sour and thin but completely still.
What changes
Best for
baking, marinades, cold soups, batters
Right thickness, right acidity, wrong personality. Buttermilk tastes cleanly and simply sour with a slightly salty finish, where kumis tastes wild and half alive. Use it happily anywhere the kumis was providing acid and liquid; do not serve it in a bowl and call it kumis. It also has no alcohol at all, which makes it the sensible choice if that matters.

What is Kumis?

Kumis is fermented mare's milk from the Central Asian steppe, also spelled koumiss or kymyz, a thin, pale, sharply sour drink with a natural fizz and a trace of alcohol, because yeasts ferment it alongside lactic bacteria.

Cooking tips

Kumis is almost always a drink rather than a cooking ingredient, so match it on how it feels in the mouth: thin, cold, sour and slightly effervescent. Anything you can pour and gulp is on the right track; anything you eat with a spoon is not.
Mare's milk has more lactose and much less casein than cow's milk, which is why kumis stays thin and never sets into a curd. That is also why straight yogurt looks wrong as a substitute until you thin it, and why kefir, which stays pourable, looks right.
If you want fizz from a substitute, leave sealed bottled kefir at room temperature for six to eight hours before refrigerating, then open it carefully over the sink. The yeasts keep working and build gentle carbonation, exactly as they do in kumis.
Serve any of these cold and unsweetened. Sweetening a kumis substitute pushes it toward a lassi or a smoothie and away from the savory, salty, sour profile the drink actually has alongside plov, laghman or grilled meat.
Used as a meat marinade, all of these work through acid and enzymes and will tenderize the surface of lamb or beef in two to four hours. Longer soaking turns the outside chalky and mealy, so do not leave it overnight.

Frequently asked questions

Does kumis contain alcohol, and do the substitutes?

Yes, kumis is mildly alcoholic, generally somewhere under about two percent, because yeasts ferment mare's milk alongside the bacteria. Kefir also contains a trace of alcohol, usually well under one percent and often much less. Yogurt, ayran and buttermilk contain essentially none, so choose one of those if you are avoiding alcohol entirely.

Can I make kumis with cow's milk?

Not really kumis, no. Cow's milk has far more casein, so it clots into curds instead of staying thin and drinkable, and it has less lactose for the yeasts to work on, so it ferments less vigorously. What you get is kefir, which is a fine drink in its own right and the reason kefir is the recommended substitute. Genuine kumis needs mare's milk.

Can I just leave kumis out?

If a recipe uses it as the liquid in a batter, a soup or a marinade, you cannot simply omit it, but any sour cultured milk fills the gap, and even plain milk plus a tablespoon of lemon juice per cup will do for the acidity. If kumis is being served as a drink, there is nothing to leave out; pour kefir instead and say so.

What does kumis actually taste like, so I know what I am aiming for?

Sharply sour, thin, slightly fizzy, a little yeasty and bready, with a faint sweetness underneath from the high lactose and sometimes a whisper of alcohol on the finish. It is closer to a sour beer than to a milkshake. People expecting a creamy yogurt drink are usually startled the first time.

Where can I buy kumis?

Outside Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and parts of Russia it is very hard to find, because mare's milk is produced in small quantities and the drink does not keep or travel well. Occasional bottled versions appear in Central Asian and Russian specialty shops. For everything else, kefir is the practical substitute.

Related substitutes

More dairy substitutes

Kumis substitute

Other kumis substitutes

2Ayran or airan (salted yogurt drink)

3Plain yogurt thinned with water or milk

4Shubat or camel-milk kefir

5Buttermilk