DIY Greek Yogurt | cooking ala mel

Eating greek yogurt every day is pretty costly. Depending on the brand, a small 6-oz container is anywhere from one to two dollars. I’ve been buying the bulk containers, since I’ve been using it in smoothies as of late, which cuts down on the cost a little bit, but it’s still about $3 for four servings. I knew it was something I could probably make myself and save a lot of money on, but I thought it would be really time consuming, and I just never got around to it. Finally, last week I was pretty much out of yogurt, and we had a lot of milk that we needed to use up, so I decided it was time.

I am so glad I finally took the plunge and made my own greek yogurt. It is SO easy, and the yogurt is much more rich and creamy than what you buy at the store. I usually don’t like greek yogurt plain, but I can’t stop dipping strawberries into this. It’s that good. The kitty approves, too. I let him lick off the spoon once I was all finished, and he’s been wanting more ever since.

The hands on time is only about a half hour, and you can leave it to incubate overnight, so it hardly seems to take any time at all! Strain it in the morning, and you’ve got fresh greek yogurt. My grocery bill is going down significantly already..

DIY Greek Yogurt

from Annie’s Eats

makes about 3-4 cups

2 quarts milk (I used skim, but choose what you like!)

2 t plain yogurt

1/4 cup instant dry milk (optional)

Heat the milk in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it reaches 180ºF (this denatures the proteins so it can incubate). Remove from the heat and allow to cool to 110-120ºF. You need it to be at this temperature so the yogurt cultures will incubate. Any higher will kill the cultures, and any lower will not allow them to set up properly.

Transfer the milk to a large glass bowl (a 2.5 quart Pyrex dish is great in this case), and stir in the plain yogurt (this provides the live active cultures). If using the dry milk, stir in now (this will make it thicker/creamier, especially if using skim milk). Cover the bowl and wrap it in heavy dish towels. Place it into the oven. Preheat the oven to any temperature, and shut off after 1 minute. This will remove the chill from the oven. Close the oven, and allow the yogurt to incubate.

The incubation period can take anywhere from 8-12 hours. If you think it needs it, you can preheat your oven for 1 minute every few hours to ensure that the mixture remains in the correct temperature range (if you do this overnight, don’t worry about preheating it more than once).

Once it is done incubated, you’ll have a thick, yogurt-like mixture. It’ll be pretty watery. Take a fine mesh sieve or strainer and line it with a cheesecloth or thick paper towels. Set it over a bowl, and place the yogurt mixture into the strainer. Place the straining set up in the fridge at this point to strain out completely. Once done straining, you can either discard the liquid (whey) or save it for other uses.

Place the yogurt into an airtight container, and whisk to smooth out. At this point, you can add in some vanilla or any sweeteners you’d like. Keep refrigerated.

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