Yogurt

At Thanksgiving, Tim's cousin Marc was singing the praises of the instant pot pressure cooker he had. He was a great salesman since the next day Tim and I checked prices at Walmart and I ended up ordering the Crock Pot 6 qt. Express Multi-Cooker on a Black Friday super sale.

There is a learning curve to using the pressure cooker and after some trial and error, I really like using it! The best part is being able to toss in frozen meat and coming out with a great meal!

I've made:
Mac and cheese
Hard boiled eggs
Iced tea (which turned out bitter, even after two tries)
Chicken drumsticks from frozen
Chicken breasts from frozen
Chicken taco soup
Sweet potatoes

I'm on a Facebook group for Crock-Pot Express users and I saw so many people making yogurt. I decided to jump on the bandwagon since Anna and I like yogurt. I whipped up a batch and here is what I did, complete with bullet points and tips:

Yogurt in the Instant Pot
Cold start, no-boil method
1 1.5 L bottle of ultra-pasteurized milk, usually Fairlife or any organic milk
2 heaping tablespoons of yogurt with live, active cultures
1 can of sweetened condensed milk

Tips and notes:
*1 1.5L bottle of Fairlife ultra-pasteurized, ultra-filtered milk

This can be whole milk (red bottle) for the thickest and creamiest yogurt, or you can use 2% Fairlife, or skim Fairlife.

Fairlife is the go-to milk to use for yogurt making since it is also ultra-filtered.

Yes, you can use other ultra-pasteurized milk besides the Fairlife brand, since it is pricey. Good news! Most organic milk is ultra-pasteurized. You can use whole, 2%, or skim.

If you use regular plain milk that is not ultra-pasteurized, you have to boil it then cool it and #ain'tnobodygottimefodat. This cold-start method is low maintenance and easy.

*2 heaping TBL yogurt with live, active cultures.

I used Fage total 2% plain yogurt.

I've seen others use the Oui brand and also Chobani.

You can use whole milk yogurt, 2% yogurt, skim yogurt, etc. but it has to have live, active cultures. It will be stated on the container. 

Flavored is ok to use, you won't really taste the flavor in it.

*1 can sweetened condensed milk to add sweetness.

The finished yogurt didn't turn out overly sweet with this added.

In your instant pot, put in the whole container of milk, the yogurt, and the sweetened condensed milk. Whisk everything together. Place two layers of paper towels or a clean dish towel over the top of the pot then put your lid on. I have a glass lid that I used and you can use a dinner plate too. The paper towels absorb the moisture. Press the yogurt setting and put the lid on, over the paper towels or dish cloth. Let it cook for 8 hours or more. The longer you let it cook, the more tart it will be. The default time on the Yogurt setting is 8 hours.

I let mine go for 9 1/2 hours. I set it before I went to bed and let it cook all night. The pot gets warm, similar to a slow cooker, and it doesn't pressurize.

When the cook time finishes, turn off the pot, let the batch cool slightly, then put a sheet of aluminum foil over the top. Place in the fridge for at least 4 hours. Don't stir the mixture if you want to keep it thick and smooth. I could stand a spoon in the mixture once it had set for about 5 hours!

If you want it Greek style, you can strain the whey through some cheesecloth or coffee filters over a bowl for really thick yogurt. My yogurt batch didn't have much whey so I put it in a container and dug in! So good!

I found a ton of great recipes on Pinterest since the instruction booklet that came with the cooker was kind of lame. Click here to see my Pinterest board!

I really want to try making cheesecake next! I'll use the Cheesecake #17 recipe as found here: Cheesecake #17

Thanks for reading! Let me know if you try making yogurt and how it turns out!

Until next time,
Melissa