How to Make Greek Yogurt (with Regular Yogurt as Starter)

Ingredients Notes

You only need two simple ingredients to make 48 ounces of your own fantastic, creamy, thickened yogurt:

1/2 gallon milk – fat content of your choice. I generally use organic whole milk or 2% milk. The higher the fat content in the milk you use, the creamier your yogurt will be.

Note: I prefer to prepare this recipe with organic milk, which is produced without any synthetic chemicals, hormones or antibiotics. (Antibiotics may interfere with the yogurt-making process.)

Make sure you use regular pasteurized milk instead of ultra-pasteurized. Why? Ultra-pasteurized milk is briefly heated at a high temperature that can kill the live cultures in the milk.

2 to 3 tablespoons plain prepared yogurt (make sure it contains live, active cultures)

Note: After making your first batch, you can simply save a couple tablespoons of your homemade yogurt to start the next batch. I love that this process becomes indefinitely sustainable!

Step by Step Directions

To make regular yogurt without a yogurt maker, I’ve always followed the basic recipe in the Joy of Cooking cookbook.

The finished yogurt is then strained through cheesecloth for a few hours to release extra whey and liquids and transform into creamy Greek yogurt. Here’s the process:

STEP ONE: To begin, pour 2 tablespoons of the milk in a small bowl and reserve.

STEP TWO: Pour the rest of the milk into a double boiler or heavy-bottomed pan and turn the heat to medium. If using a double boiler, cover the milk. If the pot is directly on the burner, stir it and watch it very, very carefully so you don’t burn the bottom.

STEP THREE: Heat the milk to 180 degrees F. It helps to clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pan so you can carefully watch the temperature as it rises. Or you can check frequently with an instant read thermometer.

STEP FOUR: As soon as the temperature reaches 180 degrees, F, immediately remove the pot from the stove. Pour the milk through a wire mesh strainer into a 3 quart baking dish and leave it uncovered.

Put the dish on a cooling rack at room temperature, and let the milk cool to between 105 and 110 degrees F. Stir it a few times during the cooling process to prevent a “skin” from forming on top of the milk.

In our kitchen, this took about 50 minutes. (Note: remember to leave the dish completely uncovered at this stage, so the good bacteria from the air can start working their magic!)

STEP FIVE: While you’re waiting for the milk to cool, turn on your oven to the “warm” or “proof” setting. If your oven doesn’t have that setting, turn it to 150 degrees F.

STEP SIX: Combine the 2 tablespoons of milk you saved with 2 1/2 tablespoons prepared yogurt in a small bowl and reserve.

STEP SEVEN: Once the milk has cooled to between 105 and 110 degrees, add the yogurt-milk mixture and stir well to combine. (Don’t forget this important step.) Put the lid on the casserole dish and cover it with a dishtowel to help insulate it from temperature fluctuations.

STEP EIGHT: Turn your oven off, but now turn the oven light on. Just the light from the oven should keep the dish warm enough to enable the yogurt-making process.

Put the towel-covered dish in the oven, making sure that the towel isn’t touching the oven lightbulb, and leave the oven light on.

Note: If your oven light doesn’t emit any heat, you can alternately put the towel-covered dish on a heating pad set on “low,” or put it in a cooler with a snug-fitting lid and several sealed jars of hot water to maintain the heat.

Leave the yogurt undisturbed for 7 or 8 hours, or overnight.

STEP NINE: In the morning, carefully take the dish out, unwrap it and remove the lid, and check to see whether the milk has turned to yogurt. After ten hours, this is how our yogurt looked:

If your batch isn’t quite thickened, return it to the oven and check on it again in an hour. Once the yogurt is sufficiently thickened, you can stop at this stage if you want regular yogurt. Just stir the mixture and refrigerate it; you may need to pour off a little of the watery liquid. Don’t forget to turn off the light in your oven!

STEP TEN: For creamy Greek yogurt, refrigerate the yogurt in the covered dish for at least three hours to allow it to completely cool and thicken.

Meanwhile, line a large strainer with four layers of damp cheesecloth and find a bowl that the strainer will fit inside:

STEP ELEVEN: Put the strainer inside the large bowl, and spoon in all the yogurt to start the straining process.

Refrigerate for one hour. Pour out the liquid that has accumulated in the bottom of the bowl. This is the whey—that’s right, the very same delicacy Little Miss Muffet ate while she was sitting on her tuffet.

You can save the whey and use it for cooking or baking (like this yummy Whey Sourdough Bread).

Return the bowl to the refrigerator for one more hour, and strain the liquid again. Our batch drained off about two cups of whey, but you may have more or less and that’s fine.

The yogurt should now look thick and creamy:

STEP TWELVE: It’s ready to serve! Transfer it to a bowl and stir it for a minute or two to smooth the thick yogurt before serving. Or spoon it into a container and refrigerate it, tightly covered, for up to a week. Makes about 6 cups, or 8 6-ounce servings.

Serving Suggestions

You can enjoy the Greek yoghurt as is, or top it with:

• Fresh berries
• Your favorite fruits
• Honey or maple syrup
• Jam or preserves
• Granola

Remember to save a couple of tablespoons of your homemade yogurt so you can use it as starter for the next batch!

Other Ways to Use Greek Yogurt

• Use it in place of sour cream in your favorite dip recipe.
• Make Tzatziki Sauce, the sauce/dip that’s popular with gyros and in Mediterranean cuisine.
• Spoon it over a baked potato.
• Blend it into a breakfast smoothie.
• Make yogurt popsicles!

Troubleshooting: If Your Homemade Greek Yogurt Doesn’t Thicken

After many successful batches of homemade yogurt, I recently had a big FAIL. The only thing I’d done differently was to use our smaller, upper oven to incubate the yogurt instead of the lower oven I usually use.

When I pulled the yogurt out the next morning it hadn’t thickened at all; it was simply a big bowl of warm milk. I was so disappointed! At first I suspected the milk, because I’d used the big-name brand of organic milk that is known to be ultra-pasteurized. But when I measured the temperature of the milk, it was 130 degrees – too hot.

I decided to experiment with the failed batch, and let the milk cool back to 110 degrees. Then I added 2 more tablespoons of yogurt mixed with 1 tablespoon of milk. (My thinking was that the too-high temperature had killed the live cultures from the previously-added yogurt.)

I wrapped the bowl in a towel, put it in the lower oven with the oven light on, and let it rest for 8 hours.

When I opened the lid, I was amazed to see that the batch was thick and creamy. In fact, it was one of the thickest batches I’ve ever made. The consistency was slightly sticky, but after I strained the yogurt it was fine.

So if you ever have a batch that fails, you may want to try again and try to find the right spot where you can keep the yogurt at that ideal temperature of about 110 degrees F.