We absolutely love that rich, thick Greek-style yogurt, especially for mid-afternoon snacks and quick desserts. Whether you use regular store-bought yogurt or make your own, it’s ridiculously easy to turn it into Greek yogurt.
All you need is a strainer, a bowl, and some cheesecloth. Fold the cheesecloth a few times so it forms several layers and lay it inside the strainer. Set the strainer over the bowl. Pour the yogurt into the lined strainer.
Let this sit in your fridge for anywhere from a half an hour to overnight, depending on how thick you want the yogurt. After a few hours, our yogurt was thick enough to spread on toast like cream cheese.
The watery whey that collects in the bowl is useful too. It has a tangy flavor and is full of vitamins and minerals. We like to use whey in place of some of the water when we make bread. You can also add it to smoothies, sauces, and soups. If nothing else, pets love it!
A few last notes: From 1 1/2 cups of yogurt, we got about 1 cup of thick yogurt and 1 cup of whey. Instead of cheesecloth, you can use coffee filters or a clean men’s handkerchief. You can also gather the sides of the cloth together and hang it from your faucet or a cupboard knob instead of setting it over the strainer.
How do you use Greek-style yogurt?
Related: Recipe: Smoky Deviled Eggs with Greek Yogurt
(Images: Emma Christensen)
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I used good quality paper towels, the only thing available in my house the other day, and it worked too.
I love greek yogurt - I just started eating it this summer and now I'm hooked! I like the fact that you can use coffee filters and regular yogurt, we always have those around. I'm going to try this tonight - it will be much cheaper this way too!
I use a Donvier Yogurt Cheese Maker from Amazon. It's just a tupperware-like contraption, but it has a nice strainer built in, and a snug-fitting lid. I use it so much with my homemade yogurt, that it's more of an extravagant necessity now.
Ah, someone beat me to it, haha. I was going to say that decent paper towels work wonderfully when lined inside of a strainer. I usually put my yogurt in a strainer over a bowl and let it drain for 2 hours. That's usually long enough to get to a decent consistency where it's not quite as thick as cream cheese but it's noticeably different from its original state.
I really love Greek yogurt. I use it in lots of stuff. One favorite way to use it is to make couscous and saute some chickpeas, onions and peas with cumin, and serve it with a dollop of yogurt on top. The cool yogurt and the smoky cumin go perfectly together.
Am I being stupid? How did 1.5 cups of something yield 2 (1 + 1) cups of two things?
Maybe this is a seeing is believing situation....?
P.S. Apart from that, v excited about this post. I keep meaning to try this, since I adore Greek yogurt but can't find low-fat organic Greek-style yogurt, especially not without the hefty price tag. I used to buy some nice stuff in London when I lived there.. that was my weekly splurge.
EvaToad - You're definitely not stupid! I was a little baffled too.
I scooped out 1 1/2 cups of yogurt (granted, they were healthy half-cup scoops), and then somehow got 1 cup of whey and 1 cup of yogurt - as you can see in the pictures. (That's a 1-cup canning jar.) If someone can explain this, I'd appreciate it!
Maybe the 1+1=1.5 spookiness has something to do with cups being a volume measurement instead of mass. I wonder if the weight of the original equals the weight of the end products summed.
For what it's worth, apparently 1 cup of rubbing alcohol mixed with 1 cup of water gives you slightly less than 2 cups because the molecules can slip between each other a bit and take up less space.
Or maybe it's all down to the healthy scoops >.>
I've always wanted to try this but have never gotten around to it.
Emma & 100s-- You're not dreaming. The whey is bound up in a matrix of proteins in yogurt; pretty much as soon as you disturb yogurt by putting your spoon in, the whey starts to separate out. So after straining, you still have this proteiny matrix, but now some of the whey molecules are no longer nestled in that matrix, so you do get a little extra volume that way.
However, I think the "healthy half-cup scoops" probably has more to do with it!
@matchbook - Thank you! Very interesting. I also think the mass vs. volume measurement is a good point - I bet the before and after way (whey...heh heh heh) about the same total. Yeah, and the healthy scoops. :)
You can also put a coffee filter inside a strainer to make this.
RE: the volume discrepancy: That's why weighing things always makes more sense. No confusion.
If you let it sit for a few days, you'll have labneh: delicious, delicious yogurt cheese. All it needs is a drizzle of oil, a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and some really good bread.
@ Daniel : I beat you to it BUT your post was much more detailed and interesting :-)
Perhaps I am being persnickety but the term "Greek yogurt" always struck me as a tad ethnocentric -- strained yogurt is as Indian or Armenian or Arab or Turkish as it is Greek, though no country had the marketing execs at Fage to plant their flag. And anyhow, calling it by its proper English name, strained yogurt, makes on realize how easy it is to make on one's own.
would this work with soy yogurt? i LOVE yogurt, including Greek yogurt, but i have recently come to the conclusion that i'm lactose intolerant :(