how to make vegan yogurt

Did you know that yogurt-making follows the same process for animal and plant milks?

This means that there isn’t anything special about making vegan yogurt: you just need a starter, milk, and a heat source. The defining features of yogurt are that it’s thick, creamy, and contains the bacteria pair of lactobacillus bulgaricus and its friend streptococcus thermophilus.

Most yogurts contain a bunch of other strains as well, which are delicious and beneficial.

Unfortunately, most vegan yogurt is absolutely terrible: grainy, sweet, and filled with things other than bacteria and milk. I do not think that milk with gellan gum and some lemon is yogurt. I wish people would stop trying to sell it as if it were – it gives both vegans and yogurt a bad name. At best, if there’s some lactobacillus in there, it’s yogurt with a bad dessert blended in.

finding your starter

There are all sorts of places you can find those bacteria to use them as a starter.

You can get powdered yogurt starter, or use a probiotic supplement; you can take your favorite water kefir or probiotic drink and mix that in; you can try to wild-catch some bacteria by letting a couple chickpeas ferment in clean water outside for a couple of days (as a note, this last one can be dangerous: be careful, test small quantities first, and please don’t consume anything your nose and taste buds tell you is bad).

Most folks use a yogurt they already like to start their yogurt – and once you’ve made some yogurt, you can use that yogurt to make more.

You can use any type of yogurt to start any type of milk; the bacteria might take a bit to adapt, but they’ll figure it out. I like New Earth made by some NorCal hippies, and that’s made with coconut milk, but I use it in soy milk and it works out just fine. I think New Earth tastes quite nice, but it’s expensive and not widely available. Cocojune is also pretty good.

I’ve found that most store-bought vegan yogurt that doesn’t taste atrocious or contain a ton of junk is made with coconut. Coconut ferments well and has a high fat content, so its availability makes sense, even as the lack of other bases does not. If you can’t find one of the brands I mentioned above (or have a coconut allergy), I’d check the ingredients list of whatever is near you. You really can use anything as long as it has the appropriate bacteria: if you don’t mind animal cross contamination, you can actually use a cow or goat milk yogurt to start your plant-based yogurt, hopefully using each batch to start the next after that, never to return to animal products again.

choosing your milk

I prefer soy milk as a base because it’s protein-rich so it coagulates/gels well, and I think the protein makes it taste and act closer to animal-derived yogurt. (Tofu is, after all, just cheese made of soy, and there are lots of fermented kinds that are for whatever reason not available in the west but which taste a lot more diverse than the plain blocks most westerners think of when they imagine tofu.) I have absolutely no idea why every commercial soy-based yogurt I’ve tried tastes like it’s full of sand. Soy is also cheap, widely available, and sustainable. Thinner milks like almond will result in thinner yogurt, but this can be addressed by straining. I haven’t yet tried either oat or rice milk.

Please make sure your milk does not contain anti-coagulants. We are trying to encourage coagulating. Anti-coagulants are… antithetical.

making the yogurt

Now, the actual “making” part: take your starter. Take some milk. (Ratio of 1:30 starter:milk or higher.) Take a big pot.

Optionally, heat the milk to just under boiling, then let it cool down to just warm again. This denatures the proteins so they coagulate better.

Mix your starter and milk. Get ‘em warm, like above a hundred degrees fahrenheit, or forty celsius. If you have an Instant Pot or similar, this is when you press the “yogurt” button. Other people use an oven on a very low setting. If you live somewhere hot and haven’t refrigerated your place, you can just leave the pot outside, maybe with a blanket.

Now… wait.

Just wait. Most important part, aside from the warmth? Don’t move the pot. The bacteria don’t like to be disturbed. Minimum time eight hours, but I’d recommend closer to a full day.

After that day… congratulations on your yogurt!

Hooray! 🎉

it’s too thin!

Your yogurt will likely be a little looser than store-bought: this is normal. If it bothers you, throw it on a cheesecloth and strain it. You can use the whey you strain out to bake, or, well, just drink it. The looseness might be why there’s so much filler in commercial vegan yogurt, but, seriously – just strain it. The yogurt’ll come out thick. It will still have proteins and bacteria. You’ll get delicious whey. Your yogurt won’t taste like you’ve added cardboard. Definitely worth it.

If you’re planning on making something like tan (yogurt + water drink) or soup, straining is unnecessary.

Please spread the gospel of cheap and plentiful vegan yogurt far and wide. Please make some yourself, and serve it to friends. Yogurt is both good and good for you. The way we treat cows and other animals we derive milk from, especially at scale, is not – it is an affront to the idea of life itself, and most people are lactose intolerant besides. Let’s come up with and propagate gentler ways of being, together. <3