Lben substitutes

A fermented milk drink that is naturally thin, sour and lightly fizzy.

Best for

drinking cold with couscous, marinating chicken and lamb, msemen and harcha dough, bread and pancake batters

The closest match in character of anything sold in a supermarket, because it shares the three qualities that define lben: thin body, real sourness, and a slight prickle from active fermentation. Differences are minor and worth knowing: kefir is a shade yeastier and more complex, and homemade kefir can be grainy, in which case pass it through a sieve. It is not salted, so a small pinch of salt makes it read more like a drink and less like an ingredient.

Carton buttermilk let down to lben's thinner consistency.

Best for

drinking with couscous, baking, marinades, cold soups

The most available answer, and the thinning genuinely matters rather than being a nicety. Undiluted cultured buttermilk is thickened, sometimes with added stabilisers, and it coats the mouth in a way that makes it feel heavy next to a rich couscous, where lben is meant to be refreshing. Even diluted it is slightly sweeter and less sharply fermented than lben; a small squeeze of lemon closes that gap. For baking, skip the water and use it straight.

The most universally available option, thinned into a drinkable liquid.

Best for

drinking cold, marinades, dough and batters, cooling a spicy dish

Reliable and cheap, and the pinch of salt is what turns it from thinned yoghurt into something that tastes deliberate. Compared with lben it is milder, rounder and lacks the faint fizz, and even at one to one it stays a touch thicker, so add more water if it clings to the glass. Use plain full-fat or low-fat yoghurt, not Greek, which is strained and needs closer to two parts water. A squeeze of lemon sharpens it toward lben's sourness.

The thin sour liquid that drains out when you make labneh, which is close to lben in kind.

Best for

drinking cold, bread dough, cooking grains, marinades

Genuinely close and effectively free if you have been straining yoghurt anyway, because it is what lben is: the watery, cultured, low-fat fraction of soured milk with the solids removed. It is thinner and less creamy even than lben, and paler in colour, so a glass looks slightly translucent. Salt improves it noticeably. It also makes excellent bread dough, where its acidity softens the crumb, and it is what Moroccan cooks do with their own whey.

Turkish and Persian salted yoghurt drinks, built on the same idea as lben.

Best for

drinking with a rich main course, cooling spicy food, serving alongside grilled meat

Essentially the same category of drink from a neighbouring cuisine, so it does the palate-cleansing job well. The differences are seasoning and carbonation: ayran is salted, sometimes noticeably, and doogh is often minted and occasionally carbonated, so the drink tastes savoury and herby rather than plainly sour. That is a pleasant change beside couscous rather than a problem. For cooking or baking, choose an unminted one or the herb will show up where you did not want it.

The classic buttermilk hack, which covers the chemistry but not the drink.

Best for

baking with baking soda, pancake and msemen batters, quick breads

Worth being blunt about: this works only where lben's role is to supply acid to react with baking soda, which is real and common in Moroccan breads and pancakes. As a drink it is not lben and not pleasant, because you get curdled flecks in sweet milk with a sharp citrus edge rather than a smooth cultured sourness. There are no live cultures and none of the fermented depth. Use it for baking and use something else for the glass beside the couscous.