How to Make Yogurt Cheese

Once you know how to make yogurt cheese, you will have little pods of it sitting around all the time. There are so many creative ways you can flavor it and serve it. In the Mid-East, they call it labeneh. In the United States, Greek-style yogurt is very popular. This is just yogurt with much of the liquid, or whey, removed. Depending upon how long you let the whey drain out of it, you can get different consistencies. You can achieve the looser Greek-style yogurt or the consistency of cream cheese. At my house, I utilize it like cream cheese to make little onion and parsley cheese logs to eat on crackers.

Materials and Ingredients needed:

Plain yogurt. I use Dannon Plain. Do not use yogurt that has gelatin in it. It will not work.

Small Colander and a bowl to put under it.

Good quality paper towels or white dish towel

Coffee filters

Dried minced onion from the spice shelf

Dried Parsley

Directions:

1. Place a colander over a bowl.

2. Line the bowl with a few layers of paper towel, still connected. A good white dish towel would be even better.

3. Dump some yogurt in the center, and bring up the edges to form a ball.

4. While holding it inside the colander, gently squeeze some liquid out. Allow to sit in colander in this form for a couple of hours, squeezing occasionally. I do not refrigerate during this process, but many people do. You can use your own discretion. Dannon Yogurt suggests that you do refrigerate during the entire draining process.

5. After you have removed a substantial part of the whey, place small amounts of the yogurt into coffee filters. Gathering the edges to form a little ball, squeeze more liquid out. Be careful not to spring a leak.

6.Allow the little packages of yogurt cheese to continue draining in the colander overnight. You should refrigerate. I don't.

7. I re- wrap the little cheese packets with dry coffee filters. Before I do, I add a few dried minced onions and some dried parsley. This is totally a matter of personal taste. Many people use garlic salt. The amounts depend on how much yogurt cheese you are using. I added more onion than parsley. You can roll the little cheese logs in parsley, paprika, dried beef, nuts, or sunflower seeds. Too much dried parsley can be too strong. You could flavor them any way you would cream cheese.

You can add olives and a dab of mayonnaise to make a delicious spread. Serve a dollop inside a pear half sprinkled with shredded cheddar.

You will enjoy the beginner's step in making cheese. Who knows? You may decide to attempt something more complicated next time.

Quick Cooking Tips - The Dannon Kitchen, Dannon