Those funny little cauliflower popcorn looking blobs are dairy kefir grains.

Kefir is an amazing probiotic beverage that is great for your gut and helps populate it with good bacteria. If you’ve ever cultured dairy kefir, you know that healthy kefir grains will rapidly multiply and soon you will have enough grains to be able to culture kefir for your whole neighborhood or you’ll start looking for ways to use up the extras.

My favorite ways to use extra kefir grains.

1. “Convert” dairy grains into water kefir grains

   You can use extra dairy kefir grains and convert them to make water kefir, which is like a homemade soda with probiotic benefits. Granted, dairy kefir grains will never actually be water kefir grains, as they are different, but you can make a tasty carbonated beverage using your converted “water kefir grains.” My 7 year old absolutely loves the water kefir made with grape juice. 

   Cultures for Health has a some wonderful suggestions on different flavor variations for water kefir. Check out their 10 ways to flavor your water kefir.

2. Put kefir grains in smoothies

   There are a whole variety of smoothies out there,and adding a few kefir grains would be an awesome addition of hidden probiotics -- especially to sneak some extra probiotics to the kids. Just be careful to start out with a small amount and work your way up to more, as you may have an undesired reaction if you do too much all at once (which is a sign of your body detoxing.