Making Greek-style yogurt with homemade *or* store-bought plain yogurt

This is part 2 of Making Yogurt for Dirt Cheap.

First of all, I forgot to mention in yesterday's post on freezing starter, how to thaw starter for use.

• Thaw only what you need for one batch.
• Thaw in fridge overnight, or
• on counter for 3 to 4 hours. 
• Don't thaw with heat (microwave or stove). 

My unplanned, unorganized method -- when I first get up, I take one 6-oz container of starter from the freezer and leave on the counter. By the time I'm ready to use it, it's thawed completely.

Now, on to making your own Greek-style yogurt.

Greek yogurt appears to be one of the new super foods. It's packed with nutrients. Lots of active cultures, heaps of protein, and less sodium and carbohydrates than traditional yogurt. It makes a good substitute for mayo, sour cream and cream cheese in sandwich and cracker spreads, and dips. Plus, it's lower in lactose than traditional yogurt, which is already a reduced lactose product. The process of making yogurt lowers the lactose in milk, plus straining out additional whey removes even more. For me, Greek yogurt is one of just a couple of dairy products that I can eat.

But, Greek yogurt in the store is a tad expensive for what you're really getting. It's just plain yogurt, which has been strained to remove whey. Nothing complicated about it.

I use homemade yogurt to make Greek-style. You can also turn commercial, plain yogurt into Greek-style, too. It's simple, requires minimal hands-on time, and can save you a buck or two on your Greek yogurt fix.

Take a mesh sieve and place over a bowl. Line with a paper coffee filter, or several layers of cheesecloth.

Spoon plain yogurt into filter. (I can fit about 3 cups of yogurt into my sieve at a time.) Place in the fridge, and wait. Out of 3 cups of yogurt, 1/2 cup of whey drains off in about 1 hour. We're satisfied with a final product that has about 1/3 (1 cup) of the water/whey removed, which takes about 3 hours.

When the desired consistency is reached, scoop into a container, cover and refrigerate. That's it.
Greek yogurt keeps for a couple of weeks.

My homemade, Greek-style yogurt costs about 80 to 85 cents per quart. Now that's dirt cheap for Greek-style yogurt.


You can save the whey to use as liquid in quick breads or muffins. Whey is nutritious in its own right. It contains protein, calcium, potassium and Vit B-2. You could pour the whey down the drain, but why not use it as a nutritional boost to the foods you cook?!