Cooking For A Better Tomorrow: Homemade Plain Yogurt

Last week, I shared some things you might want to know in regards to dairy if you were interested in making better choices in that department. Hopefully, you found it valuable. I wanted to follow that post with some dairy related recipes and the first thing that came to mind was yogurt. I have read about people making their own yogurt and quite frankly it intimidated me. The more I learned, I realized it didn’t seem so bad. There are many different cooking methods I have seen, but to me they all can be summarized into a few simple steps.

1. Heat milk
2. Slightly cool milk
3. Mix in starter
4. Let it sit for an extended amount of time

Those seem attainable and easy enough steps anyone can handle. This isn’t really a skill recipe, instead you just need time. I have done this three different times so far and I will be honest, I do find it extremely easy and something I can do that doesn’t take much thought, but I am not 100% sold yet. I really prefer greek yogurt and I haven’t been able to get my homemade yogurt as thick as store bought greek yogurt. With that said, I don’t typically sit around and eat a bowl of yogurt, instead use it mainly for smoothies and sauces, so might keep it up. Either way, this is definitely worth sharing.

To start off you need to know a few things. I used whole milk products - hopefully you learned why last week. Also, you will need to save some of your yogurt from the last store bought package (or buy a small cup). This is what is known as a starter for your homemade yogurt. It is important to make sure your starter has active cultures. This would be listed on the back of the package. Finally, you can really make however much you want, but keep in mind a 1 cup milk to 1 T starter ratio.

Here goes...

Homemade Plain Yogurt

Ingredients:
Whole milk, 6 cups
Whole milk plain yogurt, 6 T

Set yogurt out to allow to warm to room temperature.

Warm your milk in a saucepan until it reaches 180-190 degrees. It will start to wrinkle, but don’t let it bubble or boil.

Better Bonus Tip: I have seen this done in the microwave or stove top. I chose the stove top.

Remove the milk from the burner. Use a spoon to get rid of the ‘skin’ that formed on top of the milk. Pour into a tempered glass bowl and let it cool to 100-120 degrees.

Better Bonus Tip: You can let it sit on the counter or use an ice bath. I used an ice bath to speed up the process.

Add a little bit of the warmed milk, don’t need to measure - maybe ½ c, to the yogurt starter and mix gently to combine. Add the mix back to the main bowl of warmed milk.

At this point, you are basically done. It needs to sit and maintain its temperature for multiple hours. I turned my oven on to preheat to 350 degrees for one minute. To say again, for one minute - that means it won’t get to 350 degrees, instead more like 100. After the one minute, turn off the oven and turn on the oven light. Add foil to the top of the bowl and wrap the bowl in a towel. Place the bowl in the oven.

Better Bonus Tip: Some people use crockpots for this step, but I despise cleaning my crockpot. Feel free to do whichever you prefer.

Here comes the variance. You will find recipes that say let it sit for anywhere from 4-14 hours. I found 4 to absolutely not be long enough. The first time I did 8 hours throughout the day because I wanted to watch it, but then the last two times I have done it overnight for 14 hours (no I wasn’t sleeping for 14 hours, although that would be AMAZING!!). I personally didn’t notice much difference between 8 and 14 hours. Most will say the thickness doesn’t change, just the flavor a bit. I don’t eat plain yogurt by itself, so either was fine with me.

If you like thinner yogurt you can stop here. If you like thicker yogurt, keep reading.

The yellow liquid the settles on the top of the yogurt (and you even see in store bought yogurt) is called whey. The whey is removed in greek yogurt, so this is what I attempted to do. I don’t have a strainer that works well enough to remove only the whey, while not losing any of the yogurt. Instead I used what I had and added a coffee filter. This worked okay, but not great. If you have creative ideas or a strainer that will work, use it. If you have other ideas, I would love to hear them. Since I don't have a great method here, this is why I can't get it to my desired level of thickness. At this point, I really don't want to buy anything else.

Store the yogurt in a mason jar in your fridge. It will last a couple weeks, but you will need to save a little bit to use for your next starter. The fresher the starter, the better your next batch of yogurt will turn out.

So you are done! Now what? Like I said I use yogurt a lot in my smoothies. If you eat it plain, consider using maple syrup, honey, vanilla or blended fruit as mix ins. Top with fresh fruit or granola.

I also took some inspiration from Pinterest and made some frozen yogurt covered blueberries. I added maple syrup to the yogurt until it was a bit sweeter, then used a toothpick to dip the berry into the yogurt.