Originally published November 9, 2008. Making your own yogurt is really so easy! And frugal, too.
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If you like yogurt, but you don’t like the price – have you ever considered making your own?
Stephanie at a Year’s Worth of CrockPotting has a recipe for making homemade yogurt in your crockpot – and it’s really easy!
REALLY. EASY.
As she said, it came out a little on the thin side – but the Dannon fat free plain yogurt I buy is also a little thin, and I don’t mind it. Next time I think I’ll let it sit a little longer than 8 hours and see if it makes a difference. It may or may not.
For me, the cost of a half gallon of milk was a little under 3 dollars, and I spend about $3.50 for a large tub of Dannon yogurt. Considering you make at least twice that amount, that’s a pretty good savings. I guess I should’ve done the exact math before posting this, huh? 🙂
The yogurt turned out well, and to flavor it, I just added some vanilla and sugar substitute – that way I can add fruit on an individual basis if I want, or leave it vanilla flavored.
End result?
The yogurt works and tastes good. We like that.
We save money. Big Daddy likes that.
Note: Since the writing of this post, I have made our own yogurt several more times, each successfully. For storebought, I have switched to Yoplait Fat Free Plain Yogurt, because it has more protein per serving than Dannon Plain Nonfat.
Photo Credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/notahipster/ / CC BY 2.0
That sounds really good. We will have to try it once I have a crock pot. The boys love yogurt which we generally don’t get much unless it is on sale. Have a great week and God bless,
Jennifer
I have seen suggestions of adding unflavored gelatin to yogurt to make it more ‘spoonable’ like the Yoplait kids yogurt… I can’t wait to try this as well. That is so AWESOME that you can make it in the slow cooker instead of buying one of those fancy yogurt makers… 😀
OK I’m going to try this today. I’m a little unsure about the whole thing, but I figure the gallon of milk cost me $2 so what have I got to lose?
I made it!! Now how much Splenda & vanilla did YOU add. Mine’s not quite the way I like it, but it IS good, although rather thin. Yogurt smoothies?
Thanks so much for sharing this!
Yay!! Well, the first batch I made, I never sweetened the whole thing, I just added a packet of Splenda to each bowl I served. This second batch I just made, I added probably a third cup of Sugar Twin (another sweetener I use). I didn’t measure exactly, I just sweetened it to taste. Recently I cooked down some red plums and lemon juice and sugar/cinnamon. I didn’t have pectin or gelatin so I didn’t make a jam – it just made kind of a sauce. It’s perfect for stirring into the yogurt to flavor it – and I’m sure… Read more »
[…] You think I’m kidding, I’m not! A couple of years ago I weaned my family off the sugar and food coloring abundant dessertified forms of yogurt available on the store shelves. I say “weaned”.. truth is I just stopped buying it. Since then (except on rare occasions) we’ve only bought the large tubs of plain yogurt. We’ve even made our own! […]
[…] it REAL FOOD. The way God made it. We just started buying raw milk and we love it. We already know how to make yogurt and this week plan on trying our hand at butter and cream cheese! […]
I just came across your post about the yogurt. If I am sweetening with Splenda should I wait to sweeten until it has set up? I saw somewhere else where the yogurt never set because of the splenda?
Hi, Ashley! I’ve never tried adding sweetener until after it was done. I’d be worried that it wouldn’t turn out right if I tried. I would go ahead and make the yogurt and then sweeten to taste and store in a container. Make sure that if you lick a spoon, that you don’t dip it back into the yogurt because the enzymes in your saliva will begin breaking down the yogurt and making it thinner. And don’t forget to reserve some plain yogurt before you sweeten it so that you can make more yogurt later. =) Happy yogurt making!