Our family loves yogurt and I thought I wonder if we could make it. We tried and have found a wonderful easy recipe. We made some this weekend and my youngest said “Boy mom I love when you make yogurt.
Recipe for plain yogurt this recipe makes 4 to 5 cups. Yogurt can be stored in the refrigerator for about 10 days. This recipe can be doubled or tripled with no loss of quality, but make sure you can use that amount in 10 days or less. Adjust pan and container size accordingly. We saved containers from store bought yogurt and use them for our homemade.
- 1 quart milk (whole, low fat, skim or reconstituted nonfat dry milk)
- Nonfat dry milk powder – use 1/3 cup powder
- 1/4 cup commercial, unflavored, cultured yogurt* It needs to say active cultures in the container. My dear friend Robin buys powder cultures at the health food store and that works fine also, but cost more.
- 3 tablespoons sugar or honey (optional) we use sugar and this is what really made the taste great for us.
Place cold, pasteurized milk in the top of a double boiler and stir in nonfat dry milk powder. Stir in sugar or honey if sweeter, less tart yogurt is desired.
Heat milk to 200 degrees F and hold for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring gently to dissolve powder.
Remove one cup of the warm milk and blend it with the yogurt starter culture. Add this to the rest of the warm milk. Temperature should now be 110 degrees F to 112 degrees F.
Pour immediately into the clean container, cover and place in prepared incubator. I use a towel wrap around container and then wrap warm heating pad with a pan over that and heat for about 4 hours.
Yogurt should be set. The longer the incubation time the more tart the flavor.
We add fruits and eat or use to make smoothies with fruit
Happy frugal eating!
