Homemade Vegan Yogurt: Rice, Hemp, Coconut, or Oat Milk

I took to making my own yogurt when I realized how much I was spending every week on soy yogurt for Sawyer and coconut milk yogurt for Abiline. So Delicious coconut milk yogurt is true to its name, but $4 for two cups worth of it is pretty steep.  It is really simple to make your own, plus then you can use other non-dairy, non-soy milks and can better control the amount and kind of sugar added.  The one trick was that I had to buy a yogurt maker (about $30) to keep my yogurt at the correct incubation temperature (between 120 and 110 degrees).  However, if you have a decent crock pot that does not overheat on the "warm" setting like mine does, or--better yet--that has a temperature control, you can use that to incubate the yogurt.  I have had success with making yogurt from coconut milk, hemp milk (the combination of the two is perhaps the best), homemade oat milk, and rice milk. Non-dairy yogurt is really thin because non-dairy milks are in large part water; I have seen agar powder and tapioca starch as recommended thickeners, but I have not had success with either one(UPDATE: I recently did find a good formula for tapioca and agar-thickened yogurt!), and instead have been using guar gum or xantham gum. (Xantham gum is usually corn-based so if you have a severe corn allergy, stay away from this.) Here is the basic formula, plus some of my kids' favorite flavors.



Equipment: Medium-large sized pot, candy thermometer, large glass jar with lid and crockpot or a yogurt maker
5 cups non-dairy milk of choice
2 Tbsp. already prepared plain yogurt, either store-bought or from your last batch of homemade

1. Pour milk into the pot and place the candy thermometer in so that it is touching the milk, not the bottom of the pan. Heat over high heat until the thermometer reaches 185 degrees. This kills all of the bacteria that you don't want to culture.  Be sure to watch it so that it doesn't boil over.
2. Take the already prepared yogurt that you will use as a starter culture out of the fridge. If you are using your crock pot, warm it up to 115. Take the pan off the heat and let the mixture cool until it reaches 115 degrees. Once it does, stir in the yogurt and either place the mixture in a glass jar with the lid just placed on top, not screwed, and place it in the crockpot with the crockpot lid on and a towel wrapped around the jar, or pour the mixture into your yogurt maker. Allow to incubate for 8-10 hours. The longer it sits, the tarter it gets!
3. Once the yogurt is done, place in the fridge for a few hours to cool down. Then follow one of the recipes below by placing all of the ingredients in a blender and blending until thickened.

Basic Vanilla Yogurt:
One batch plain homemade yogurt
1 1/2 tsp. xantham or guar gum
1/4 c. honey, agave, or coconut sugar
1/8-1/4 tsp. stevia powder
1/2 tbsp. vanilla extract

Chocolate Yogurt:
Follow recipe for vanilla, but add 1/4 cup cocoa powder. It is also delicious if you add 1/4 cup sunflower seed butter as well.

Mango Coconut Yogurt:
One batch plain homemade yogurt
1 1/2 tsp. xantham or guar gum
2 Tbsp. coconut butter/manna
1/4 c. coconut sugar, or desired sweetener
1/4 tsp. stevia powder
1 1/2 c. mango chunks, fresh or thawed frozen
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. coconut extract

Basic Preserve-Sweetened Fruit Yogurt:
One batch plain homemade yogurt
1 1/2 tsp. xantham or guar gum
1/4 c. all-fruit preserves
1/2 cup fruit
1/4 tsp. stevia powder
1 tsp. vanilla extract


In more exciting news, there was a terrible wind storm here last week, and a tree down the street got pulled up by its roots, which the kids thought was pretty awesome.  It was hard to get a good picture because Abbie and Sawyer were jumping around so much on the poor tree. It became a favorite play spot for a few days, until this morning when someone finally came and cleaned it up, to Sawyer's great disappointment.