Yogurt Recipe

Yogurt is amazingly easy to make at home, once you know how, and tastes at least as good as the store-bought kind. The trick is to use the ways perfected over centuries in Turkey and India. Many modern recipes call for all sorts of unneeded extra steps and ingredients. But in fact, cleanliness, time, and gentleness are the keys to thick yogurt. Live yogurt starter and milk are the only ingredients. You don’t need to add powdered milk or gelatin as some recipes call for. Bringing the milk to a boil and cooling it slowly changes the structure of the milk so it will thicken up enough on its own.

Before you use this recipe the first time, you may want to watch this video on making homemade yogurt or read about making a yogurt nest and choosing yogurt starter.

Recipe: Homemade yogurt

Active time: 30 minutes, mostly of occasional stirring. Total time: 8 to 11 hours. Servings: 8 half-cup servings. Recipe is easy to divide or double.

Ingredients

4 cups milk (skim, low fat, or whole)
2 T fresh live yogurt OR 1 ice-cube-sized chunk frozen live yogurt

Method

1. Set out the live yogurt in a small clean bowl or cup so it will come to room temperature while the milk is heated and then cooled. Set out one or more very clean containers or jars.
2. Heat milk over medium heat just until it starts to boil, stirring more frequently as the milk gets hotter. Set up the yogurt nest between stirs. As soon as the milk starts to boil, take it off the heat and pour it into your containers to cool. Let the milk cool to 105 to 110 degrees, for about 30 minutes.
3. Stir the yogurt starter until it is creamy, then stir it into the warm milk. Cover the container and nestle it in the yogurt nest. Turn on the heating pad. Leave yourself a note so you will remember to refrigerate the yogurt after seven to ten hours.
4. When the time comes, gently place the container in the refrigerator. Let it cool thoroughly before stirring.

Flavoring yogurt

Vanilla yogurt

Start with four cups of plain yogurt. Stir in 2 tablespoons of honey and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Eat as is or mix in fruit.

Garlic-pepper yogurt

Start with 1/2 cup of plain yogurt. Stir in 1 large minced clove of garlic and 1/2 teaspoon of hot sauce. Let the flavors blend for five minutes before serving. Keeps for a week if you started with fresh yogurt. Excellent as a garnish for burritos, bean dishes, or steamed vegetables such as broccoli.

Tips and notes

• Boil milk to make yogurt, then use the same pot to make pudding.
• At first, cover the pot and stir the milk occasionally so it doesn't burn. As it gets hotter, uncover and stir frequently. At the end, stir constantly except when you are checking to see if the milk is boiling. Scrubbing burnt milk off the bottom of a pot wastes any time you might have saved by ignoring milk that was about to boil.
• If your yogurt is thin and watery, try letting the culture develop at a lower temperature for a longer time.
• If your yogurt turns out sour, try using glass jars and lids and boiling them in water to make sure they are super-clean.