Making homemade yogurt is not something I invented and there are a million different methods that are all essentially the same thing.
We based our recipes off of combining Dahi/curd recipes from Indian blogs hoping to find a more authentic recipe.
Maintaining a yogurt culture isn’t too hard, but it does require some forethought, similar to most fermented foods.
Making yogurt takes 8-12 hours, but less than 30 minutes of active work!
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup of yogurt (store bought or from previous yogurt batch)
- If using store bought, try to get a brand that says “live cultures” on it
- 1/2 gallon of whole milk
Items you may want but aren’t required
- Cheese cloth
- Strainer
- Thermometer
Recipe
- Fill the sink (or bowl) with cold water/ice water, so you can put your sauce pan into a cold water bath once it heats to temperature
- Heat the milk in a sauce pan over medium heat until it hits 180°, stirring frequently
- If you don’t have a thermometer, wait to see bubbles forming in the milk where it meets with the saucepan
- Place the sauce pan into the cold water and cool down to 110°
- This is harder without a thermometer, but lukewarm water is a good reference!
- Temper the yogurt before adding it into the milk: Mix the 1/4 cup of yogurt with some of the warmed milk in a separate bowl. Once mixed in, pour the tempered mixture into the rest of the milk
- Wrap the sauce pan in towels and place the pan into a turned-off oven for 8-12 hours
- Once the mixture has fermented, it should be formed up and ready to eat!
- Optional to make Greek yogurt: strain into a bowl/strainer/ cheesecloth in the fridge for a couple of hours. This strains out any liquid and thicken up the yogurt. If you want you can add more of that liquid in later to get the desired texture, it mixes in just fine
We have been making this weekly and I have been indulging in homemade mango lassi’s weekly, It’s been awesome. Check out my bullshit “how-to” freeze fruits when they are in season.
This yogurt can be used to make some Tzatziki sauce if you are feeling like a crazy person (being crazy is cool.)
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