Homemade Yogurt: The Foolproof Recipe
The GRANNUS Team
To avoid the ridiculous cost of yogurt, we jumped on the instant-pot yogurt craze of ~2017. We tried a lot of recipes along the way and can wholeheartedly say that it’s depressing to lift the lid after 9 hours of waiting to find a bunch of warm milk. This recipe has never failed us – a solid 100% success rate – so while there might be shortcuts out there, we’re sticking with this one. Price-wise, it is about 50% cheaper than buying store-bought organic Greek yogurt.
This recipe takes ~36 hours to make; in reality, it is 35.5 hours of passive time and 30 minutes of active time. In other words, there is a lot of waiting and not much doing.
A couple of notes:
- You can use your favorite name-brand plain yogurt as the starter and you’ll get a yogurt that is pretty close to it
- Save 4oz of yogurt from each batch to use as the starter for the next batch; you can do this for several cycles before it loses its oompf.
- Plain yogurt is pretty close in flavor and texture to sour cream, making it an easy diet substitute.
- The Mediterranean Diet supports whole milk and whole milk products; skim milk is a relic of the low-fat diet craze of the 1980s-90s. If jumping straight to whole milk isn’t your thing, you can slowly ease back in. The higher the milk fat, the greater the yogurt yield.
- 1 gal skim milk (week 1)
- 1/2 gal skim milk + 1/2 gal 1% milk (week 2)
- 1 gal 1% milk (week 3)
- 1/2 gal 1% milk + 1/2 gal 2% milk (week 4)
- 1 gal 2% milk (week 5)
- 1/2 gal 2% milk + 1/2 gal whole milk (week 6)
- 1 gal whole milk (week 7)
Ingredients
- 1 gal of milk – we prefer 2 half-gallon cartons of organic whole milk because of microplastics
- 4oz of plain yogurt or a packet of yogurt starter
- Probiotic capsules (optional)
- 2oz of pure vanilla extract
- 4oz of honey or agave sweetener
Tools
- Instant pot with yogurt function
- Large glass bowl
- Stainless steel whisk
- Yogurt strainers (if you prefer Greek-style yogurt)
- Mason jars (canning jars)
- Freezer-safe lids for mason jars
- Funnel for mason jars (highly recommended)
- Ladle
The Fermenting:
- In a clean instant pot liner, pour 1 gal of milk
- Seal the lid and set the yogurt function to 10 hours at normal
- If using yogurt, remove it from the refrigerator to come up to room temp
- Set a kitchen or phone timer for 60 minutes
- At 60 minutes, remove the lid and add yogurt or yogurt starter. Stir with a whisk 10-12 times to combine.
- If you want to add particular probiotics due to a health need, this is the time to do so. Stir to combine.
- Replace the lid and wait the 9 remaining hours.
Cooling:
- At this point, you should have jiggly-looking yogurt. Remove the liner pan from the instant pot, cover it with a glass lid, kitchen wrap, or even a kitchen plate, and refrigerate for 6-8 hours; we generally let it go overnight.
The Final Prep:
- Overnight, the yogurt will have firmed up further and should now look like yogurt.
- Set aside 4oz of yogurt for the next round of starter. Shove it to the back of the refrigerator so someone doesn’t accidentally eat it.
- If you like plain, non-Greek-style yogurt or want a sour cream alternative, stop here. Ladle the yogurt into mason jars, close them with nonreactive lids, and enjoy!
- If you want a non-Greek sweetened and flavored yogurt, add the honey and vanilla to the yogurt and whisk to combine until smooth. Ladle the yogurt into the mason jars, close them with nonreactive lids, and enjoy!
- If you want a Greek-style yogurt, ladle the yogurt into the yogurt strainers and return them to the refrigerator for 5-6 hours.
- Remove the strainers from the refrigerator and pour the yogurt into a glass bowl. Add the honey and vanilla and whisk to combine until smooth. Ladle the yogurt into the mason jars, close them with nonreactive lids, and enjoy!
- Note: If the yogurt is too thick, you can add some back in. Leftover whey can be used in smoothies, dumped on outdoor plants, or used in recipes that call for buttermilk. (The whey is the whey protein used in many store-bought protein powders.)
