Cheesemaking - How To Make Yogurt, Whey, Cream Cheese

Sign up for the REAL FOOD FOR ROOKIES class to learn how to get Real Food on your table without going nuts or going broke! Get bonuses like a FREE Real Food Ingredient Guide and members-only Real Food coupons to save up to half the cost of the class. If you'd like to earn money as an affiliate, read more here.

It’s embarrassing to admit, but growing up, I didn’t even know you could make your own cream cheese, and I’d only ever seen Philadelphia Cream Cheese. I never knew making my own raw milk yogurt and raw milk cream cheese could be so simple.

(Getting a video into a post, however, is not so simple. I had a video from last summer showing you how I make these, but after several tries I still haven’t been able to get that sucker into a post. Whatever.)

Instructions for making raw milk yogurt:

***BE SURE TO CHECK THE COMMENTS FOR SOME GREAT INFO YOU’LL WANT TO KNOW!

Place 1 quart (4 cups) of whole milk, preferably raw in a glass jar (I use my half-gallon Ball jars.)
Add 1 packet of Yogourmet yogurt starter OR 1/2 cup of yogurt from a previous batch (also get a variety of starters here – some that do and some that do not need to be heated – Note: I’ll be paid a small amount per click if you buy through this link, and I thank you!)
Stir gently.
Keep warm for up to 12 hours until it gets thick (see more below on the consistency) – leave it on the countertop in warm weather, or put it on the back of your stove while you’re making Crispy Nuts or something else in your oven. I’ve also kept mine in some hot water inside a crock pot, too.

That’s it! Now you have yogurt, but it won’t be very thick. I’ve heard it gets thicker using a yogurt maker, but then the enzymes in the raw milk are killed, and even then it’s still not that thick like store-bought. Commercial yogurt must have gelatin or some type of fake ingredients in it to give it the thicker consistency. If you know of a natural way to make raw milk yogurt more thick, please share!

UPDATE: to make it thicker, just use a different kind of yogurt starter!

Your kids may go for this yogurt, but mine don’t (I buy Stonyfield or Brown Cow whole milk yogurt for their lunches or snacks), so I use mine to soak grains, OR to make…

Cream cheese and whey:

Tie a cheese cloth with the corners so it can hang on a cabinet knob. (You can buy these cheap at Meijer or wherever.)
Place a bowl under the cheese cloth to catch the whey.
Pour the yogurt into the middle of the cheese cloth and it will start dripping whey.
When it is done dripping (12-24 hours, depends on how dry you want it), I usually try to squeeze a few more drops out.
By the way, this is actually a picture of when I made a different kind of cheese, but I wanted you to get the idea of how to tie it up.

What you have left inside the cheesecloth is cream cheese! Scoop this into a bowl and it will keep for 1 month in the frig. You can add herbs to give it different wonderful flavors.

What you have in the bowl is whey – some drink it plain because it is so good for us, but I use it in recipes found in the below cookbook, in homemade bread, or in Real Food protein shakes (that link won’t work until tomorrow when I post it for Real Food Wednesday.)

By the way, you can make yogurt and cream cheese from pasteurized milk (only whole milk!), but obviously it won’t have as many nutrients – still much better for you than store-bought, though!

I learned all this and more from Sally Fallon’s cookbook:

Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats.

Now, I’m sure there are MANY of you out there who know much more about all this and have done it for years, so feel free to correct me or give us more details if you can provide them!