Have you ever wanted to make your own Greek yogurt? I’ve made this recipe countless times, and you can, too. Just follow the easy directions and enjoy thick, creamy homemade Greek yogurt any time you like.
I first published this recipe on March 6, 2011. Hundreds of readers added comments and questions over the years, so now I’ve updated the post with new photos and more information.
Back in 2011 a blog was often like an online diary, but these days most readers want the information presented quickly and concisely. “We don’t want to read your life story!” they say, so I’ve removed my original scintillating intro about tasting FAGE Greek yogurt for the first time at my aunt’s home.
There’s even a “jump to recipe” button at the top of the post now, so you can skip the step by step tutorial if you wish and go straight to the printable recipe card. What a time to be alive!
Shall we make some delicious homemade Greek yogurt?
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Amazing Flavor and Texture: Thick, creamy Greek yogurt compares to regular yogurt like a home-grown tomato compares to a February grocery store tomato; it tastes a kazillion times better!
Economical: If you eat a lot of Greek yogurt like I do (almost every morning), the cost can add up. Making your own yogurt from scratch is easy and saves money!
All Natural: You’ll have total control over the ingredients, so you can avoid the additives in store-bought yogurt and make a very pure product.
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!
Money Saving Tip
If your grocery story has a bargain section in the dairy case, check for organic milk that is nearing its expiration date.
This milk is perfect for yogurt making, and is often sold at a discount.
Cooking Equipment
Here’s what you’ll need to prepare this homemade Greek yogurt recipe:
- Cooking thermometer – either a candy thermometer or an instant-read thermometer work best
- Large mesh strainer
- Mixing bowl that the strainer fits inside, so the yogurt can drain
- Cheesecloth to fit 4 layers when draped over the strainer
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.
PRO TIP: Resist the temptation to add more than 3 tablespoons yogurt. According to the Joy of Cooking, “you may wonder why so little starter is used and think that a little more will give a better result. It won’t. The bacillus, if crowded, gives a sour, watery product.”
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:
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.
Printable Recipe Card
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Homemade Greek Yogurt
Equipment
- Candy thermometer
- Large mesh strainer
- Large mixing bowl
- Cheesecloth
- 3-quart casserole dish
- cooling rack
- Large dishtowel
Ingredients
- 1/2 gallon whole organic milk
- 2 1/2 tablespoons plain yogurt with active cultures
Instructions
- Pour 2 tablespoons of the milk in a small bowl and reserve.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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. Let the milk cool to between 105 and 110 degrees F, stirring a few times during the cooling process to prevent a “skin” from forming on top of the milk.
- Turn on your oven to the “warm” or “proof” setting. If your oven doesn’t have that setting, turn it to 150 degrees F.
- Combine the 2 tablespoons of milk you saved with 2 1/2 tablespoons prepared yogurt in a small bowl and reserve.
- Once the milk has cooled to between 105 and 110 degrees, add the yogurt-milk mixture and stir well to combine. Put the lid on the casserole dish and cover it with a dishtowel to help insulate it from temperature fluctuations.
- 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 near the oven lightbulb, and leave the oven light on. Leave the yogurt undisturbed for 7 or 8 hours, or overnight.
- After 8 hours or the next morning, carefully take the dish out, unwrap it and remove the lid, and check to see whether the milk has turned to yogurt. 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, place the dish in the refrigerator for 3 hours. Cut 4 pieces of cheesecloth to fit inside a large wire mesh strainer. Run the cheesecloth under water and squeeze out as much water as you can.
- Line the strainer with the cheesecloth and place it inside a large mixing bowl. Spoon all of the yogurt into the strainer. Refrigerate for 1 hour and pour the liquid that has accumulated into a large measuring cup. Return the bowl to the refrigerator for one more hour, and strain the liquid again.
- Your delicious Greek yogurt is ready to enjoy! Stir it for a minute or two to smooth the mixture 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.
Notes
Nutrition
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Eliza Cross is the creator of Happy Simple Living, where she shares ideas to help busy people simplify cooking, gardening, holidays, home, and money. She is also the award-winning author of 17 cookbooks, including Small Bites and 101 Things To Do With Bacon.
Thank you so much! I can’t wait to try this. Adding to my list of things to learn to make. Very exciting because I love yogurt!
Good luck, Alisha! Let us know how it turns out.
xo
Thanks for your great recipe. Two questions, have you tried making yogurt with goats milk? Have you ever used a small amount of sugar in the mixture? I’ve seen other recipes where they added a teaspoon of sugar.
Gina,
I haven’t tried making goat’s milk yogurt, but our friends at Everything Goat Milk have and they’ve provided an easy goat milk yogurt recipe. I’m not sure about the sugar, either, but if you try it will you let us know how it turns out?
xo
Eliza
Goat’s milk works fine!
When I was pregnant, I read that goat’s milk yogurt is the “perfect” food for a pregnant woman.
I made my own and ate it with fresh fruit throughout my pregnancy.
My “baby” is now 34 years old and I’m making yogurt for my grandchildren!
i have made yogurt for years and have found a tablespoon or two of dry milk powder will make it thick and creamy without the straining stage. Straining, while a good way to thicken, lessens the quantity of your batch.
Great tip, Emma – thanks for sharing it!
Thank you for taking the time to share this recipe Eliza. My son and I LOVE Greek yogurt and, as everyone else has mentioned, it’s quite the expensive habit.
I’m slowly getting into the ‘make it yourself’ lifestyle making our rice milk and other staples. I can’t wait to give this recipe a try!
Will let you know how it turns out :)
It worked! My first batch came out perfect!
To share my experience for the next person, I heated the milk on the stove in a pot, stirring constantly, and reached 180 in about 45 minutes. Left in an open wide casserole dish, the milk cooled to 110 in less than 30 minutes.
I left it in the oven for just over 8 hours and it came out with a nice consistency (though next time I will leave it in for 9 hours to make it a little thicker).
Cooled for over 6 hours (was out running errands) and then strained for an hour using a bowl, a regular colander and a thin (clean!) t-shirt (tip from another make your own greek yogurt recipe).
This batch came out great though I will try for a slightly thicker consistency next time.
Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful recipe Eliza!
I’m so glad the recipe worked for you, Victoria!
xo,
Eliza
Hi, I just made my first greek yogurt and it turned out pretty good in texture but with a tiny acid flavor, whatc could go wrong?It was 12 hours inside a box which was inside another box(i put cartoon newspaper and things like that in between the boxes I covered everything with a big blanket and put it inside the oven, (but turned off)
Hi, Magali,
It’s hard to say, and it sounds like you took many steps to keep the temperature consistent. Did you preheat the oven a bit and leave your oven light on? Differences in milk can also cause variations in taste, so you might experiment with a different brand. You could also add a little nonfat dried milk to increase the protein level in the yogurt which might help it be less acidic. Good luck and let us know how your next batch turns out!
Wow, this is a long blog about yoghurt!
I’ve been making my own yoghurt for some time now with great success and little variation from batch to batch. I use something called any ‘Easiyo’ which I bought for a couple of dollars from a charity shop, but even new they cost less than $20. It’s basically just a wide-throated plastic thermos with a frame to hold a jar inside. It makes 1 litre (about a quart) of unstrained yoghurt and has been designed so that the given amount of boiling water (1.1 litres)poured into the outer container and the amount of milk in the jar (which is only immersed about two inches) balance to hold the temperature at a pretty precise figure for the necessary time.
The Easiyo system expects you to buy their fruit-flavoured (and sugared) packs of milk powder and starter culture for each batch, but, like everyone else here, I use my favorite live culture yoghurt as a starter and then reuse my yoghurt as a starter for five our six batches before I buy a new lot.
I’ve used all sorts of milk but always pasturised or ultra-pasturised and I NEVER heat the milk apart from in the hot water bath. I simply pour room-temperature milk into the jar, add the mother culture, put the jar into the boiling water inside the insulated container, and leave it for six hours. Then I refrigerate it.
I find that the yoghurt gets thicker in the refrigerator so I do this before straining to the required thickness. To strain I use a piece of well-washed fine weave cotton (sheet) placed inside a sieve over a jug. I turn a flap of spare clothe over the top to avoid microbial or fungal contamination. Afterwards I hand-wash the cloth in dishwash detergent, rinse it in weak vinegar then water and hang it in the sun to re-energise ;)
I don’t believe that heating the milk to 180° is necessary with pasturized milk. I sterilize my containers and utensils, but the milk has already been sterilized by pasturization. In my experience, heating the milk doesn’t change the consistency or taste of the final product in any way.
If I’m feeling too poor to remember the ethics of exploiting dairy farmers and their already exploited cows, I buy the cheapest long-life (ultra-pasturized) supermarket milk I can find, and unfailingly get great results – very annoying. The only ‘failure’ I have had was using the best quality milk available to me – organic, full-cream, biodynamic milk from Jersey cows – the full monte. It was also non-homogonised, so all those tiny natural globules of milk fat resulted in a grainy textured yoghurt.
Chance,
Thank you for taking the time to put all of these thoughts into writing, and it’s great to hear about your methods and results.
xo
I was interested in making my own yogurt and found your site. WONDERFUL!! Followed your directions and now have a beautiful container of homemade yogurt that I can control what else goes in it. I used Stonyfield 2% organic milk (could not find anything better in my area) and used the crock from my crockpot to let it sit in once it came off the stovetop. My oven has a “proof” button so I used that without the towel and it kept it at the right temperature. 8 hours later I had yogurt. Thank you very much for posting the information you did. It made it much easier for me to understand and do. :)
Linda,
I’m so glad the recipe worked for you!
:-)
this may sound silly, but how do we know if the yogurt culture is alive?
Alexandra,
Remember that high school teacher who declared “there are no silly questions, only silly teachers!” or something to that effect? Anyway, I tried to find a definitive answer to your question and I came up with these two facts:
1. The cultures in homemade yogurt are probably much more “live” that those in commercial yogurt that has been sitting on a grocer’s shelf.
2. The active culture stays live for about two weeks, so the sooner you eat the yogurt, the better.
Hope this helps!
xo
this recipe is so good it helped me heaps good job!!!
Hurray! Thanks, Rachel.
Question in the last step of straining the yogurt:
After the first strain through cheesecloth, it says to put the bowl back in the fridge and then restrain. Do you pour the yogurt that has been strained back into the bowl, after dummping the whey, and then re-strain through the same cheesecloth or do you need to line the strainer with a new set of cheesecloth?
Lauren,
I just pour the whey out of the bowl but leave the yogurt in the cheesecloth-lined strainer. Then put the whole set-up back in the fridge, where some more of the liquid will drain off into the bowl. Hope this helps, and good luck!
I seem to have a problem with yogurt,it didn’t thicken overnight,its very liquid consistency.going to leave it in a tad bit more.
Sorry, Yvonne. :-( Did leaving it in the oven help it thicken? Does your oven have a “proof” setting that you could use to keep the oven consistently warm overnight? I hope you have better results with your next batch.
My son taught me how to make yogurt, without a thermometer. We heat the milk on low till it starts to steam, never letting it boil. Remove from the heat, and let it cool till you can stick your finger in and leave it there for 8 seconds. At that time I add the starter. I then put it in a quart size mason jar, and wrap it in a down comforter overnight. In the morning I refrigerate it, and once cooled, strain it through a coffee filter in a colander (hanging over a large bowl). Perfect yogurt every time. Love the quality that I control, and saving money.
Thanks for sharing your experiences with us, Linda! So happy you’re saving money and enjoying making your own yogurt. :-)
This is great yogurt. I use the microwave instead of the stove top. It takes between 16 and 17 minutes, on High, to reach the correct temperature. I also add a cup of dry milk to add extra calcium.
Thanks for sharing your tips, Barb – much appreciated!
I stuck an outdoor thermometer in my oven with the light on. It only reached 75 degrees? Is this safe? Another site I saw says to keep it a 110.
Suggestions? Alternate methods? Thank you! I really want to try this!
Does your oven have a “proof” setting? If so, I’d use that because I agree that 75 degrees seems too low. Or you might try this: heat your oven to 150 degrees while you are making the yogurt mixture. Turn it off as soon as you pour the yogurt in the container to cool on the countertop, and turn the oven light on at that time. Proceed according to the directions, and start checking the yogurt after 7 or 8 hours. If you read through the comments, you’ll also find some other methods for maintaining the heat. Good luck!