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.
22 comments
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October 21, 2012 at 3:40 am
Maria Langer
This sounds great! I’ll give this a try this week. Is it correct to assume that I can halve the recipe?
October 21, 2012 at 4:17 am
tammyheff
I would think that shouldn’t be a problem. Let me know how you do.
October 21, 2012 at 8:41 am
Maria
Will do. Will probably try tomorrow or Tuesday.
October 21, 2012 at 9:27 am
Dian
Sounds good and easy to me. My husband, Irv, used to make yogurt, but hasn’t for a long time. Maybe I’ll try it even though I like fruited or vanilla yogurt much better!
October 21, 2012 at 11:57 am
tammyheff
Dian, it’s really easy. I don’t eat the yogurt plain. I had a tablespoon of fruit jam and stir it in. That gives you instant flavored yogurt so you don’t have to have the same thing everyday.
Enjoy!
October 21, 2012 at 5:29 pm
Andree
Thank you, Tammy! I’m sharing this everywhere I can.
You put a tablespoon of jam into how much yogurt?
I’m assuming that if I drain this that then I can have Greek yogurt?
October 21, 2012 at 7:21 pm
tammyheff
Hi Andree
I put a tablespoon of jam into a bowl or serving of yogurt.
As for the yogurt starter, just use 2 tablespoons of plain yogurt. You can buy actual starter but it is not necessary.
Enjoy!
Tammy
October 21, 2012 at 5:30 pm
Andree
Oh! and where do you get yogurt starter?
October 22, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Maria
I really like those plastic jar tops. Never saw them in stores. Need to look for them.
October 22, 2012 at 12:54 pm
tammyheff
They have them here in by the canning stuff. If you can’t find them, tell me whether you need narrow or wide mouth and I’ll ship you a box.
T.
October 22, 2012 at 5:45 pm
Maria
Here’s another question: what temp is the water in the cooler when you start and then 6 hours later? I used a crappy cooler and was worried it would lose heat too quickly, so I stuck it out in the sun. The Arizona sun, which is the only kind we have here. Am wondering if that will prevent it from losing the heat it should.
Maybe next time you do the recipe you could take the water’s temperate at beginning and end? If mine fails, the water temperature could explain it.
Of course, I’m hoping it doesn’t fail.
October 22, 2012 at 5:56 pm
tammyheff
I never took the temperature just ran my tap water hot. If you are not happy with your results let me know and I will check water temp next batch
October 22, 2012 at 6:15 pm
Maria
Fair enough. Thanks!
October 23, 2012 at 3:22 pm
Maria
It came out good! The water in the cooler was still warm when I pulled the jar out at 6 PM. The jar contents had a good nonfat yogurt type thickness and consistency. In other words, not like Greek yogurt, but still yogurt-like. This morning, I used it to “cut” a 6-oz container of flavored Greek yogurt, which is really too sweet for me. It made a perfect blend. Looking forward to using it for smoothies, etc. I figure that every time the jar gets more than half full, I’ll start a new batch. Never run out of yogurt!
October 23, 2012 at 5:05 pm
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October 24, 2012 at 10:48 pm
Patty Hebert
I used to make my own yogurt. Your blog post has inspired me to give it another go. Thanks,
October 25, 2012 at 7:12 am
tammyheff
Yay! Let me know how you make out with it Patty.
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June 7, 2014 at 9:27 am
Maria
I still make this pretty regularly. But I bought a yogurt strainer to drain out the extra whey and make Greek style yogurt. The yield is about half; there’s a lot of whey in yogurt!
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