For the past few months I’ve been experimenting with making my own non-dairy yogurts.

Actually I take that back. I’ve been experimenting over the past few YEARS but only had success until recently.

This is due to the fact that despite my voracious appetite for food blogs I never realized that store bought almond milks contain emulsifiers that prevent it from yogurtifying.

Thanks Food Science!

One of the biggest staples in my diet before forgoing dairy, along with cottage cheese, was yogurt. A lot of people have a hard time giving up cheese, but for me yogurt was the solemnest goodbye.

Despite all the advancements in the food processing world, soy yogurt… just didn’t cut it to say the least. Recently, almond and coconut yogurt have become widely delicious and I must say I am a fan of both.

Buuutttt. It still means buying unnecessary plastic. And why just take the easy, convenient route of buying it in a store when I can procrastinate school work?

Soy yogurt turned out to be surprisingly simple to make. I originally found the “recipe” (if you can call two ingredients a recipe) in Chickpea.

All you need to do is go out and buy some plain (organic! this ain’t GMOgurt) soy yogurt (one of ’em single serving thangs will do great if you can find it.) You don’t want to use flavoured yogurt such as those containing fruit as they could cause mould and junk. Preheat your oven.

Heat up a litre or so of soy milk on your stove to about room temperate. Turn off stove. Turn off oven.

Whisk in the yogurt (at least a couple tablespoons.)

Decant into jars or glass bowl or whatever the heck you got. Place in warm (but turned off!) oven with a kitchen towel over top. Alternatively you could put it in any warm spot in your house, but here in Raincouver I find the oven is an appropriate womb.

Now let it do its thing for 8 or so hours. I usually do it before bed so I have an awesome surprise in the morning. If you like a more “sour” yogurt, leave it longer!

The yogurt should have thickened up a fair bit but probably not like what you’re used to. Line a strainer with cheesecloth and drip out some of the water until you’ve reached your desired consistency. You could also thicken it by using a tablespoon or so of a starch such as tapioca (but not corn, as I mentioned- this ain’t GMOgurt….do you really want Monsanto to have autonomy over your fermented non-dairy yogurt baby?)

Don’t forget to set aside some yogurt for your next batch.

Now make it delicious! I like to add some stevia, vanilla and cinnamon… maybe some nutmeg when I’m in the mood. I also blended in some strawberries once and MY MY was I converted forever.

I’m still perfecting that almond recipe. If you have homemade almond milk on hand, you can just use your soy starter and follow the above directions. My main problem is getting it thick, it just seems like I have to strain it so much, there’s barely any left! Yes, I could use a thickener, but that feels like cheating. In any case I am currently enjoying a delicious probiotic “drink” with my morning fruit.

Eventually I will edit this post with some pictures…. but tata for now.