I came upon this homemade yogurt recipe over at Food in Jars and I love it! It is so easy, so simple and so delicious. I have made dozens of batches of yogurt this way and have yet to have one turn out disappointing, even when I forgot the jars overnight. Disillusioned with my yogurt maker which did great at first and then gave me a version of yogurt soup despite my attempts to try everything to get yogurt like the first few batches I was searching out another way to make yogurt. I wanted the convenience of the yogurt maker — the fix-it and forget-it attitude – I didn’t have time  or the inclination to wrap crock pots in towels or tinker with the oven.

This is simple all you need is milk (I use skim) and about 2 T. of yogurt to use as starter the first time around – after that you can just save 2 T. from the previous batch.  That’s the ingredients, here’s what else you require.

1. A small cooler (mine fits 2 or 3 quart mason jars)

 

 

 

2. Two quart size mason jars

 

 

 

3. One half gallon of milk (I use skim to make non-fat yogurt)

4. A whisk and a sauce pan to hold the half gallon of milk.

 

 

Then, it’s easy. Pour the milk into the sauce pan and heat until it is about 190 degrees. Remove from the stovetop and let it cool to 120 degrees. Then whisk in the 2 T of yogurt starter. Pour the milk into the quart jars — it should fill both of them to the tippy top perfectly. Cover the jars.

 

Put the jars into your cooler. Fill your cooler with hot tap water high enough to submerge the jars.

 

 

Put the lid on your cooler and I put mine right on the floor out of the way. Six hours later — YOGURT! You can leave it for up to 8 hours. I also left mine once overnight which was about 12 hours and it was tangy, but delicious.

Remove the jars from the cooler and put in the fridge. The finished product is 2 quarts of non-fat plain yogurt for the price of a half-gallon of skim milk and about 1/2 hour worth of my time. Not too shabby.