Homemade Yogurt

Yogurt can be pricey to buy, instead try making your own Homemade Yogurt today!

Start it after dinner, and by morning, you’ll have a batch of homemade yogurt ready to go!

This yogurt is made in the Instant Pot, but I can also instruct on how to do it in a pot with your stove. It is so easy!

Yogurt is a versatile food that can be enjoyed on its own or used as an ingredient in various dishes. It can be eaten as a quick and nutritious snack, added to smoothies, used as a base for dressings or dips, or incorporated into both sweet and savory recipes.

We always have yogurt on hand in our house. From fruit parfaits, to ranch dressing, to Indian cuisine, we go through SO MUCH yogurt. That can get expensive, fast! Making yogurt at home has allowed us to continue using the yogurt, as well as being able to afford it.

My kiddos love to have plain yogurt mixed with unsweetened applesauce. Add frozen blueberries or a dash of ground cinnamon for an extra kick!

Yogurt is such a great product to have! It’s full of probiotics, is a good source of essential nutrients such as protein, calcium, vitamin D, vitamin B12, potassium, and magnesium, is very filling, and I don’t feel guilty feeding it to my kids.

Yogurt is known for its positive effects on digestion. The probiotics in yogurt can help regulate the digestive system by promoting the growth of healthy bacteria in the gut.

It does take several hours to incubate the yogurt. It needs to be heated, to be properly pasteurized, before cooling and incubating. There is a whole process that we will break down here.

Once you make your own yogurt, you’ll probably never go back to buying it again!

Yogurt contains live active cultures, these cultures are the probiotics we want to ingest. Given that they have cultures, we need to start with a culture “starter”, meaning you’ll need to buy a yogurt with active cultures in it. I try to buy plain yogurt, regular or Greek, with as few ingredients as possible:

• Great Value Plain Nonfat Yogurt – contains nonfat milk and pectin – $2.36 at Walmart
• Great Value Greek Plain Nonfat Yogurt – nonfat milk as the ingredient – $3.54 at Walmart
• Stoneyfield Organic Whole Milk Probiotic Yogurt Plain – contains whole milk, pectin, vitamin D – $4.46 at Walmart
• Chobani Nonfat Greek Yogurt Plain – nonfat milk as the ingredient – $5.58 at Walmart
• The Greek Gods Plain Greek Style Yogurt – contains milk, cream, and pectin – $5.47 at Walmart

If you already have a culture, you can make four quarts of yogurt for around $4. That’s a WAY better price than buying a single quart.

*All the prices listed below are based off of my location. Prices may vary, depending on where you live.

Any of the yogurt brands listed above will work. Which one you decide on is simply personal preference. Just be sure to get plain yogurt.

What you’ll need:

• Instant pot (or heavy bottomed stockpot if using your stove)
• Candy thermometer
• 4 quart-sized jars

Ingredients:

• Whole milk – $3.68 Great Value brand at Walmart
• Plain yogurt

Steps:

*Start with having a clean, empty sink. You’ll need to cool the yogurt in an ice bath.

1. Place 1/4C yogurt in a glass bowl or measuring cup. Make sure it is large enough to add some of the pasteurized milk to it later.

2. Add your milk to the instant pot and set your pot to the high boil setting.

3. Using a rubber spatula, slowly stir the milk. You want to prevent the milk from scorching while it heats up.

*I tried using the yogurt setting to heat the milk instead, but it took way too long to heat the milk up. However, if you’d like, you can choose that option, as opposed to the “high boil” setting.

4. Use your candy thermometer to monitor the milks temperature. You want it to get up to 180 degrees Fahrenheit.

Not there yet!

5. When the thermometer reaches 170-175 degrees, plug your sink up, start filling it with cold water, and add ice to the water. Don’t fill the sink too full, maybe 4″ deep or so. Move the faucet so it is above the other side of the sink, to prevent water from dripping in your heated milk.

6. When you reach 180 degrees, use a towel or oven mitts to transfer the yogurt to the ice water.

My instant pot has an insert that can be removed, so I transfer that. Be sure to turn your instant pot off for this portion of the process.

7. Using your rubber spatula, continue stirring the yogurt, while watching the temperature of the milk. The milk needs to get down to 118 degrees before we can add our culture.

8. At 120 degrees, remove the insert from the ice water, placing on a towel. This will catch any water that drips off the insert.

9. Using a ladle, scoop 2 or 3 ladles full of milk into the glass with the yogurt culture, mixing together slowly and carefully, with a whisk or rubber spatula.

10. Slowly incorporate the mixed culture into the milk. Don’t mix it aggressively.

11. Place the insert back in the instant pot, lock the lid in place, and OPEN the pressure release valve.

12. Press the yogurt setting, make sure it is set to low, and time your yogurt for 8-12 hours.

You want to let the yogurt incubate at least 8 hours. I’ve let mine go upwards of 16 hours in the past, and it was never an issue.

13. When the timer on the instant pot beeps, remove the lid and place the lid on a towel. There is a lot of moisture on the lid that you don’t want in your yogurt, and the towel prevents a watery mess on your countertop.

Gather up a whisk, ladle, 4 mason jars, and a wide mouth funnel if you have one.

14. With a whisk, mix the yogurt together until it is smooth. During the incubating process, the whey gets separated from the milk. Whey is what gives the yogurt its protein content.

15. Ladle the yogurt into each jar. Having a wide-mouth funnel is super helpful, but not necessary. If you have one, great! If not, that’s fine, as well. Slap a date on your jars, and place them in the fridge. You can enjoy the homemade yogurt right away, or store it in the fridge for up to 3 weeks.

Congratulations! You’ve just successfully made your very own homemade yogurt!

The initial cost for this is more expensive than just buying a quart of yogurt, however, you got 4 quarts from this one batch! On top of that, now that you have your own homemade yogurt, you can use that as your culture for your next batch! You can do this pretty much indefinitely, just be sure to save 1/4C of yogurt from each batch to add to the next batch! Yogurt for life! It’s awesome, and so so simple!

For homemade yogurt without an instant pot:

Using a heavy-bottomed pot, large enough to hold a gallon of liquid, follow steps 1-11 listed above, using the stovetop. I still use high, on my stovetop, but I watch it more closely. It has a better chance of scorching the milk using this method.

Instead of using the yogurt setting on the instant pot, you’ll simply place your pot in the oven and turn the light on. Let that sit 8-12 hours or overnight, and it’ll be ready. Still super simple!

Notes:

If using the stovetop/oven method, be sure to leave a note, or some kind of marking, to remind yourself that your yogurt is in the oven. Believe me when I tell you it is NOT fun when you forget, heat up your oven for some other food, and realize too late that you are killing your yogurt.

If you know someone that makes yogurt already, you can save yourself a couple bucks and ask them for a starter.

This recipe does not make thick Greek style yogurt. If you want Greek style, you’ll need to strain the whey out. I use nut milk bags, a batch this size is best done in two nut milk bags. You can get a large bowl, place a sieve on the bowl, and place a nut milk bag, with the yogurt in it, in the sieve, allowing it to rest for at least 30 minutes, up to four hours. As it sits, the whey should drain out. Alternatively, you can hang the nut milk bags, placing a bowl underneath them, to catch the whey. I like to rig the the nut milk bags to hang from my upper cabinets. It isn’t pretty, probably isn’t even smart, but it works.

Below are the links for the equipment I use for making Greek style yogurt. These items are optional, but they definitely help!