Make Your Own Yogurt and Cream Cheese
ByYou CAN make your own yogurt and cream cheese, and it is NOT hard! You don’t have to have any fancy equipment (and when you see my pictures, you’ll believe it!).
Not only will this save you money, you’ll have yogurt and cream cheese that is VERY good for you!
(Okay, here’s my quick soap box: The yogurt you buy from the store is bragged about as being soooo good for you, but most of it is filled with artificial flavors, food coloring and high fructose corn syrup. And those things are soooo not good for you.)
Try making this yogurt, then add your own fruit, sweetener (I recommend stevia or real grade b maple syrup) and a touch of vanilla. YUM!
Here’s what you need to do to make yogurt:
1-2 quarts of whole milk (I use unpasturized milk from a farming friend)
3/4 cup plain yogurt or this yogurt starter from Cultures for Health
Pour the yogurt into a quart jar (using a glass container is important). Heat the milk on the stove in a saucepan until it is just under 100 degrees.
Pour the milk over the yogurt in the jar and shake.
Place the jar into a cooler of hot water, cover and leave in the cooler for seven hours.
There, you just made yogurt!
Now, you can eat the yogurt as I mentioned before, or you can take your yogurt and make cream cheese (and impress the socks off of someone!).
So, to make cream cheese, line a strainer with a tea towel. Pour the yogurt into the tea towel.
You need to secure the tea towel full of yogurt and hang it for 7-10 hours (I usually do this overnight) so that the whey can drip off. I’m sure there must be a more impressive way to hang your yogurt, but what we’ve come up with works just fine!
Here are the secrets to my effective cream cheese-hanging-whey-dripping process (I know, you’re on the edge of your chair!):
I fold over the top of the tea towel and hold it closed with a couple of rubber bands. Then, I use several more rubber bands to attach a long wooden spoon to the wadded up tea towel. Then, I use a rope to dangle the tea towel from a cabinet door. And, of course I leave a bowl under the whole contraption so that whey doesn’t drip all over the floor (because then, my process would not be nearly as cute).
Then, after you can tell that the whey has all separated from the cream cheese (you can tell it’s finished if it isn’t dripping any more), then you pull the whole thing down and scrape the cream cheese into a jar. And that’s it. It is so simple.
Sure, you can tell people that it took you hours and hours to make yogurt and cream cheese (because technically it DID take hours to make), but the part you actually played in it took about 10 minutes.
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Thanks. I was wondering if I had to buy another CrockPot since it’s often being used for bone broth or beans, but now it’s safe to keep holding off. I own all the supplies to this cooler method. Awesome.
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Do you know what the ratio is approximately? If I use 1c of yogurt, for instance, how much cream cheese will I end up with?
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Laura Reply:
January 8th, 2013 at 10:20 pm
I would guess that one cup of yogurt would make about a half cup of cream cheese. Don’t hold me to that though!
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Wow…I am spending way too much money on organic yogurt from the grocery store and I am going to try this!
Three questions…
1 – when you say, “cooler of hot water” I’m assuming this is just the hottest temp of regular tap water? My tap gets pretty hot so I’m assuming this will do
2 – as long as the cooler is big enough, can you put more than 1 quart jar in there?
3 – instead of buying “starters” can I just reserve 3/4 cup yogurt from what I have made to use next time?
Many thanks!
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Jill Reply:
January 14th, 2013 at 8:08 am
Same questions for me, plus
4-is pasteurized or homogenized milk ok also?
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LindseyforLaura@HHM Reply:
February 6th, 2013 at 8:46 pm
You can use those kinds of milk. Laura uses raw because it is healthier.
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Jamie Reply:
January 16th, 2013 at 1:35 pm
http://www.culturesforhealth.com/expert-advice
This is CfH’s index on expert advice/recipes. It is a treasure trove of info!
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LindseyforLaura@HHM Reply:
January 31st, 2013 at 4:54 pm
The answers are yes, yes and yes! :)
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thank u so much for such an easy way…i was so worried because of the complicated and twisted methods mentioned in different websites.
so cream cheese is actually the residue of yougurt…huh…thanx again
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I’m also curious to know the temp of the water in your cooler. I tried this method for the first time today and got the water too hot. My “yogurt” was over 120 degrees when I took it out 9 hours later! Obviously the cultures were killed!
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Laura Reply:
February 2nd, 2013 at 8:10 pm
Shucks – I guess I just try to keep my water at just under 100 degrees when I put it into the cooler. That seems to work well.
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Help! I (thought) I followed your recipe for yogurt, but the top 2/3 of the jars were filled with a yellowy/clear liquid. What did I do wrong? I used bought lowfat plain yogurt, but used raw milk (that had most cream skimmed off before I bought it). I think the temp. on my thermometer did get up to 105 before I took it off the burner. It was still completely runny after 8 hours in the cooler–was the water too hot? The water still seemed quite hot so dumped some out and added more and left it over night, but not much change. The bit left at the bottom did seem to taste like yogurt, but was still very runny.
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Laura Reply:
February 2nd, 2013 at 8:11 pm
It sounds like the whey separated from the rest of the yogurt. No prob – just shake it up and it should all be fine! :)
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Forgot to say that the water was hot almost boiling from the tea kettle so I wondered if that was the problem.
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Laura Reply:
February 2nd, 2013 at 8:12 pm
Yes, the hot water may have killed the culture, so that could be why it remained so runny – it may have never quite made it to that yogurt thickening point. Although I have found that no matter what I try, homemade yogurt is runnier than store bought.
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How thick does the yogurt starter make your finished yogurt? I have been making yogurt in a crockpot for a couple years, and ideally it would be thicker. But I normally use one tablespoon of purchased yogurt as a starter per quart of milk, and I make 3 quarts at a time (we go through that amount in a week). I already add 1/4 c powdered milk to the milk in the crockpot, to help thicken it, and it does help some. But overall… I’d change to the powdered starter if it makes thicker yogurt.
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Laura Reply:
February 2nd, 2013 at 8:13 pm
I haven’t found that the powdered starter makes my yogurt as thick as store bought – typically though, that’s because store bought yogurt has fillers added.
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lenora Reply:
April 9th, 2013 at 1:55 am
I used FAGE as a starter 2 tab. to 4 cups of milk, it turned out perfect thick n creamy. now I have my own starter from my batch and it is the same, perfect. I have been using a maker ,stovetop method I cant wait to save more time with this method. It only took 3-4 hrs in the maker. not bad for a first timer. thanks hope this helps
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Hello, I cant wait to try the yogurt and crean cheese recipes!! But I have a question. If I cant get milk from a farmer :( what is the best milk to buy at the store?(Organic or almond…) And for the yogurt instead of buying the yogurt stater kit is using plain greek or fage just as healthy?? Thank you so much!! I love your website!!
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LindseyforLaura@HHM Reply:
March 11th, 2013 at 12:42 pm
Organic milk would be best. Yes, plain greek or fage would be good!
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My yoghourt cream cheese looked good but was too sour to taste – made with Yeo Valley plain yog. – I had added a little salt to the yoghourt before beginning – any advice?
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Laura Reply:
March 15th, 2013 at 5:38 pm
I’m not sure – I’ve only used homemade yogurt to make this. :)
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Michelle Reply:
April 20th, 2013 at 1:15 pm
The salt may have caused problems with to the culture. I know salt causes problems with yeast if there is no barrier, so that could be the problem. Cultures need a sugar to stay alive (like lactose or fructose). HTH
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I got watery yogurt, I can use it for a smoothie, it tastes good, but really disappointed, wanted this to work. I used Hood whole milk and a stoneyfield vanilla yogurt for a starter, used my therometer and tested everything 100 degrees. Wonder why it did not work.
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Laura Reply:
March 17th, 2013 at 4:22 pm
I’m not sure, although I will say that mine is always runnier than storebought yogurt. They usually add fillers to thicken theirs.
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love your idea easy way to make yogurt. I wiil try it. I will let u know what happens. mine is always thick n creamy, I use stovetop n maker with fage starter.I make homade cereal with yogurt, by soaking the grains overnite which are nuts and gluten free flour, it breaks down things the gut cannot. this will save me time. thank you
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I am feeling a bit confused. You need to buy store bought yogurt to make homemade yogurt? Is that every time or just the first time and then you use a little of your homemade stuff each time after that instead?
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Laura Reply:
April 11th, 2013 at 2:50 pm
Just the first time. After that, you use the last of your homemade yogurt to make more homemade yogurt. :)
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You can thicken up any yogurt and even make it “Greek style” by just putting it in a strainer lined with cheesecloth or a coffee filter over a bowl for a few hours or even overnight in the fridge (depending on how thick you want it). I love Greek yogurt, but don’t want to pay the high price for store bought, so I just make my own. Very yummy!
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