You know where you kinda stick to the same things every week for simplicity sake? I've seemed to have finally escaped that food rut and have some easy & delicious recipes coming your way! One of which is this super simple yogurt.

This venture into yogurt-making started with Emi being sensitive to dairy.. she has developed some serious eczema that goes away when we reduce or eliminate dairy.


Back in my Pinterest boards I had saved a cold-start method that involved an Instant Pot - but my Instant Pot doesn't have that setting. Many of the other recipes require heating and cooling the milk to certain temperatures and that seemed too involved.. I don't have time to babysit yogurt when I have a fearless toddler to keep an eye on..

I needed it to be as simple as possible.

Back to the drawing board with the cold start yogurt method. Over on Amazon I found a highly rated and inexpensive yogurt maker - a machine that keeps jars of yogurt within the correct temperature range for the probiotics to happily multiply. So if your instant pot has a yogurt setting, feel free to use that! If not, get yourself a yogurt maker!


Other things you'll need:

Ultra-Pasturized Milk  - we love the Fairlife brand - it's lactose free, lower sugar and higher protein.  It was also the first one I tried.  It worked. Why fix something that isn’t broken?  I’m sticking with Fairlife, but you can use Organic Valley or Horizon, just check the labels.

A Starter/Live Cultures - Similar to how sourdough bread needs a starter, so does your yogurt. You can purchase freeze-dried starter, but the best (and most cost-effective) way in my opinion would be with yogurt. We used Fage, plain yogurt - but you can also use Chobani, Siggi, Dannon & Yoplait.

Once you’ve made your first batch of yogurt you can use your homemade yogurt as your starter.  Freeze some yogurt in an ice cube tray, and then use a couple thawed cubes in your next batch.

Cold Start Yogurt

Ingredients
1 gallon ultra pasteurized milk like Fairlife brand - let come to room temperature.
2 tbsp plain yogurt with live cultures like Fage brand

Instructions
1.  In a large metal or glass mixing bowl (or Instant Pot/IP) combine yogurt ingredients. Whisk until well combined. Evenly distribute into glass yogurt jars - if using Yogurt Maker.

2.  If using an Instant Pot, use the glass lid or make sure vent is open so pressure doesn't build. Press the yogurt setting, incubate for 8-10 hours.

If using a Yogurt maker, replace cover and set timer. The amount of fat content in your milk can affect the time as well as how soft or set you'd like your yogurt. Using the longer time frame for "greek-style" yogurt.

Whole Milk: 8-9 hours
2% milk: 10-11 hours
Skim Milk: 12-13 hours

3.  When done, without stirring, transfer yogurt jars with lids (or inner pot of IP with lid) to a refrigerator and chill for at least 3 hours (IP: 8 hours)


4.  Serve your cold start yogurt plain or with desired toppings - We like to add in a little vanilla extract, raw honey, jams/jellies or fresh fruit.

This will keep in refrigerator for 7 days.
This yogurt is thick, creamy and delicious and a FRACTION of the calories and sugar store bought yogurt has. We've been making a batch weekly and love it!

I plan to play around with making a coconut milk yogurt, however I'm not sure I can do that cold-start. Soon as I have that down, I'll share that too!

When you make this, I'd love to hear how it turns out! Come back and share below!