Yogurt Cheese
We all want to get back to a more simplistic lifestyle and that requires taking the time to practice some of these lost skills. Luckily, some of these lifestyle changes doesn’t require as much time as we would think.
Some cheese recipes require time laboring over a hot stove, and additional weeks before you see if you made your cheese right. You will be interested to know that this type of cheese does not require long hours stirring curds and straining whey – it’s truly one of the simplest ways to make cheese.
Producing yogurt cheese is quite simple. It takes a couple of hours, but you only need about 10 minutes to prepare it and time will do the rest. All you do is strain some of the water out of yogurt, until it reaches the thickness you want. The desired consistency is that of soft cream cheese.
The great part about this recipe, is you can add as many additional ingredients as you like. Try it with some cracked pepper on top, with a garlic herb blend or freshly chopped green scallions. To make a sweeter cheese, add some honey or sugar to taste. The trick to making yogurt cheese is to ensure that the whey is well strained.
Once the yogurt and salt have been mixed, add it to a double-lined cheese cloth and take the ends and tie a knot at the top. Use the gravity method and place the cheese cloth in a colander to drain into a bowl. After a few hours, the whey will be in the bottom of the bowl. You can use the whey as a culture starter, in baked goods, make lacto-fermented vegetables, used in smoothies or freeze it for later use.
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Yogurt Cheese
Makes 2 cups
- 8 cups plain Greek yogurt
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 tablespoon olive oil, optional
- In a medium mixing bowl, add yogurt, salt and any additional ingredients together and stir until mixed. Note: On accident, I added the oil into the yogurt/salt mixture and the texture of the cheese was soft and spreadable. You could do this, but in the original recipe that I found, the olive oil was used to drizzle on top of the finished cheese.
- Double line a colander with cheese cloth and add mixture. Tie a knot around the yogurt filled cloth to a wooden spoon or dowel, and hang the yogurt over a clean bowl and drain for 24 hours. Note: If you do not have cheese cloth, add a clean coffee filter to a mesh strainer and cover top with plastic wrap to prevent the top from drying out.
- Refrigerate until straining in complete. Drizzle with olive oil and any additional herbs to add spice to the cheese.
Tess Pennington is the author of The Prepper’s Cookbook: 300 Recipes to Turn Your Emergency Food into Nutritious, Delicious, Life-Saving Meals. When a catastrophic collapse cripples society, grocery store shelves will empty within days. But if you follow this book’s plan for stocking, organizing and maintaining a proper emergency food supply, your family will have plenty to eat for weeks, months or even years. Visit her web site at ReadyNutrition.com.
