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Instant Pot Yogurt

Making this yogurt is SUPER EASY and inexpensive! It's creamy and delicious, with no additives or added sugar. This recipe makes a gallon, but you can easily halve it. You would still use the same amount of culture or starter yogurt, but just halve the milk. I use soy milk, but you can use whatever you like. Just make sure your yogurt culture is for the kind of milk you're using.
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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 day
Course: Breakfast, Condiment, Snack
Cuisine: American
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 2 64. ounce each West Life Soy Milk or 1 gallon of milk of choice
  • 1/16 teaspoon *Know-How Foods Non-Dairy Yogury Culture see note below

Equipment

  • 1 Instant Pot
  • 1 Cooking Thermometer

Method
 

  1. Place cold milk into cold Instant Pot and fasten lid. Press the yogurt button several times until it says BOIL. 
    When the boiling process is complete, the Instant Pot will beep and the display screen will say "yogt." You can go ahead and release the lid. There's no pressure. 
    Check the Temperature. You want it to be between 180-185 degrees. (You can repeat the boil cycle if needed to get it to the correct temp.)
    Remove the cooking insert from the Instant Pot and cool the milk to 110 degrees. You can let this happen naturally or speed the process by setting the pot in the sink with ice water around it. Just be sure not to get ice or water in the milk. 
    Once the milk reaches 110 degrees, you add your yogurt culture or starter. You could also add honey or sugar and/or vanilla at this point, but I like to keep it plain for savory uses as well. It's really easy to add vanilla and sweeteners to smaller amounts.
    Stir well.
    Put the cooking insert back into the Instant Pot. Make sure you dry the outside off well if you chilled it in ice water. 
    Press the yogurt display button. It will say 8 hours. You can press the + button to add hours. 20-24 hours is the sweet spot for me. 
    Let it set. Really. That's all you do.
    Once it's done, stir well with a wire whisk and put into quart or pint jars.
    For thicker yogurt, let it chill overnight, then strain through a cheesecloth overnight again. We usually skip this step.
    Your yogurt is ready, and you can add homemade berry sauce, sweeteners like maple syrup or honey, chocolate chips, or whatever makes you happy to individual servings or smaller portions, leaving some plain for savory cooking and baking. I use this in place of sour cream in most recipes.
    Enjoy!

Notes

*The Know-How Foods culture that I use is specifically for soy milk. Be sure to get a culture that works best for the type of milk you're using. Alternatively, you can use 1/4 cup of unsweetened, unflavored store-bought yogurt or 1/4 cup from your previous batch of homemade yogurt and skip the culture altogether. You would still add it at the same step of the process and proceed as written.