So my almond yogurt turned out quite well, but it took a few days to firm up and was still kind of runny.
However, today very helpful woman on my Instant Pot Vegan Group posted a great video for making soy yogurt, so I just adapted it to almond milk.
Here goes:
Almond Milk Yogurt
Heat up in a medium saucepan….
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 tsp agar agar
- 1 TBS maple syrup (this won’t sweeten the yogurt; it will simply feed the probiotics)
Once the agar agar is dissolved, remove from heat and add…
- 3 cups DIY almond milk
This will cool down the agar-water-maple syrup mixture enough to add…
- 2 probiotics* capsules (remove the capsule and pour in the powder–d’uh)
Pour into a couple of pint mason jars and place in the Instant Pot. Press yogurt and increase the time to 12 hours.
*Your probiotics capsules must contain at least one fermenting bacteria such as bulgaricus, acidophilus or thermophilus.
There you go–yogurt!!
This will last a few weeks in the fridge, and you can use it to make meltable vegan cheese or sweeten it with maple syrup and add it to fruit salad!
Sideways Cottage... 
HI! Going to try this! Do you have to put the lid on the mason jars before putting into the instapot?? Thanks!
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No–not until later. In fact, if you leave them in the fridge with the lids ajar (haha–pun), the yogurt will thicken up a bit more.
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This is great. I’m going to try this with walnut milk and grass fed gelatin.
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I tried this and the finished product had spots of pink stuff on top. Maybe the almond milk should have been boiled first to sterilize it?
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Wow–that’s never happened to me! If you do boil the almond milk, make sure you cool it down a bit before adding the probiotics. I found this on a troubleshooting site (but it refers to milk yogurts): “Very rarely, someone experiences mold on the surface of their yogurt when making room temperature yogurts. This can be due to a few issues: 1) poorly cleaned jars and utensils, 2) very old milk that wasn’t properly heated and then cooled down prior to culturing, 3) a compromised starter culture. Discard the yogurt, and start fresh with a new starter and clean materials.” Here’s the site: http://nourishedkitchen.com/troubleshooting-homemade-yogurt-questions/
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I’ve been thinking about this. I strained the freshly made almond milk right before adding it to the mixture. The strainer hadn’t been used for a few weeks, so maybe it had collected some bacteria. The jars were straight from the dishwasher, so they were nearly sterile. I’m going to try again, but this time I won’t strain because the straining didn’t pick up anything anyway. I was also wondering if there could be something in the probiotic capsules that caused the problem. I do plan to try again, and maybe this time I will sterilize everything and boil the almond milk just to be safe.
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Let me know how it turns out. I want to try this with soymilk because I recently got a soymilk maker. I’ll post when I do.
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Just popped my jars into the instant pot, am excited for the outcome! I put the lid on “venting” instead of “sealing”, is that correct, or does it make a difference?
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It should be on “sealing,” but because the heat is so low it may not make a difference! How did it turn out?
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Thanks for your response! Sadly, my batch did not work out. But there are lots of factors at play–I used store-bought almond milk instead of diy, I used a different brand of vegan starter, and I halved all of the quantities for everything because I wanted to hedge my bets in case things didn’t go as planned. Also, I had my water/agar/maple mixture on the stove on low heat (just under a simmer) for about 7-8 minutes and the agar never fully dissolved, but I was worried too much water was evaporating, so at that point I just mixed in the milk & probiotics anyway. I have another batch going now, where I’m using soy milk instead of almond (just because that’s what I currently have), waited to add the maple at the same time as the milk & probiotics, and have my IP set to “sealing”–let’s see if this batch turns into yogurt…
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Ah…yes, the commercial almond milk likely has too many preservatives. I’m going to try it with cashew milk sometime soon because you don’t need to strain cashew milk through a nut-milk bag (I hate doing that!). Let me know how the next batch turns out!
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Ok so my batch worked this time! To recap I used store bought soy milk (which does unfortunately have various preservatives, but it worked anyhow), and dissolved the agar in the water before adding maple syrup. Oh and I also did use the “sealing” instead of “venting” setting on my lid. So like I said, I did get yogurt, but it’s runnier than I’d like, and also has the not great flavor of the not great soy milk I started with. I’m excited to fiddle with the variables and keep experimenting!!
On that note, if you were going to use some existing yogurt as a starter (I’m thinking Anita’s coconut yogurt which I LOVE), combined with probiotic powder starter, what kind of ratio would you use? Have you tried that by any chance? And thanks again for your wisdom!
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Wow–that’s great that it worked out! I found this online about adding your commercial cultured yogurt to start your homemade yogurt (be sure that the temperature has dropped below 115 so you don’t kill the culture): “Add culture-2 tablespoons (of yogurt from a previous batch, store bought yogurt) per quart of milk. Lightly stir just enough to incorporate into the milk.”
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I have no idea what happened! Used freshly made almond milk and followed the directions exactly as written. I have a layer of yogurt at the top and a layer of yogurt at the bottom and yellowish liquid in between… I’m sad.
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Oh no!! Maybe stir it up and put it into the fridge to see if it thickens up?
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Tried this with diy almond milk and made sure my probiotic (Garden of Life brand) included fermenting bacteria, which it did. But I got the same results as girjillo… I had a yogurt like layer at the top and bottom and then yellowish liquid in between. Stirring and putting in the refrigerator did not help. I did have my instant pot lid on venting so I will change this to sealing but I have two additional questions. 1) Do you put the jars onto a trivet or directly on the bottom of the pot? 2) What’s the best way to incorporate the probiotic powder? When I added the probiotic, it clumped together in big blobs so I whisked the liquid very well to remove the lumps… wondering if this killed the bacteria in the probiotic? Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
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That’s too bad, Kathy! I just made a batch of cashew yogurt that had the same problem. To answer your questions: 1) yes, on the trivet; 2) apparently, probiotics don’t like metal, but I can’t image that a quick whisk with a metal whisk would kill them! Mine go in clumps too–I use a silicone spatula to mix it.
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Thank you so much for your reply… Tried again and things improved a little. Really hoping to make this work… Had a few more questions. What temp should the almond milk be before adding the probiotics? Is your instant pot on the normal, the less or the more setting? Does the size of your pot affect the time? Yogurt still separates and is runny… Just wondering if I need the “less” setting or decrease the time?
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Hi Kathy, I’m away from home at the moment, but I’ll check the temperature when I get home and make another batch!
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Can you use store bought almond milk?
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No–it has too many additives.
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I’m a newbie to probiotics. Is there a minimum dosage recommended for this recipe? Do you have a preferred probiotic? I was just looking on Amazon – way to many dosages & choices.
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I just buy the cheapest ones as long as they contain at least one fermenting bacteria such as bulgaricus, acidophilus or thermophilus. I’ll use two capsules.
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Can you use sugar instead of maple?
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You could!
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I have found that the probiotic capsules like a lower temp more like 110 and using leftover yogurt you can go to 120 for culturing temp. Unless you use the aseptic packaged soy milk, it needs to be heated to 180 then cooled for best results.
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Thanks so much for the info!
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Never heard of agar agar. What is that?
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Agar agar is a jelly-like substance derived from red algae.
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Ugh, mine was nothing more than sperated liquid. I used homemade almond milk and followed directions to the T, wonder what went wrong. It smelled like yogurt but was just this yellowy mess
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Maybe it was the probiotics?
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What do I do if my instant pot doesn’t have a yogurt setting?
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Could we just place the ‘yogurt’ straight into the instapot and then transfer it to jars when done? Also, could we use a tablespoon or two of store bought non dairy yogurt or does it have to be the capsules? Thanks SO much!!
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Apparently, you can do both, but I’ve never tried either of those strategies!
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So grateful for a way to make almond milk yogurt!
I may have made a mistake in carrying out the recipe. I tried twice: I used Instapot for 12 hours, followed the recipe exactly. One try was in mason jars, the other directly in the pot. Both tries resulted in thin liquid.
NOTE:
I used the following options which were not detailed in the recipe:
a) As prebiotic, I used: 2 of this probiotic capsule: Solaray “Acidophilus,” 3 billion CFU plus prebiotic goat’s milk freeze dried. (The caps contained a blend of L- acidophilus, L-bulgaris and S-thermophilus. I THOUGHT ABOUT also adding a starter culture from Kite Hill almond milk yogurt in addition to the two caps of Solaray “Acidophilus,” BUT I DID NOT USE THE STARTER — just used the caps.
b) As milk, I used: Blue Diamond “Almond Breeze” unsweetened vanilla. WHAT IS DIY ALMOND MILK? Is that crucial to use?
c) I put the lids on LOOSELY in the instapot
d) my agar powder never seemed to dissolve–mini particles stayed. and I heated it, perhaps too much heat?
e) I used powdered agar agar (“Telephone” brand from an asian store.)
What do you think I might have done wrong?
Thank you so much for this information!!
howclear@gmail.com
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Hi Lorraine, You can’t use commercial almond milk. You have to make it yourself! Do-It-Yourself (DIY) almond milk. There are too many additives in the commercial stuff! If you click on the link to DIY almond milk in the recipe, you will go to the instructions for making it. Also, the agar should have dissolved completely!
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Hello, I’m going to try this with coconut milk, any advice? I’ll try with the DIY almond milk next week when I make my almond milk again…but have a question, can I use tapioca starch instead of agar agar, if so, how much and when/how do I add it?
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YUM! Coconut yogurt sounds good! Do make sure the coconut milk has no additives though—I think you’d have to make it yourself. I’m not sure about the tapioca flour—it might make the consistency of your yogurt grainy. Good luck!
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I was excited to find this recipe to make homemade yogurt. I love yogurt and have been searching for almost a year to find one to use. I have to say I am a bit disappointed since I waited all day hoping for some yogurt. I opened my instant pot and looked in my Mason jars and very runny yogurt. I stirred it up and have put it in the refrigerator, hopefully it will firm up. I followed the recipe to the letter so I am not sure what happened.
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I’m sorry yours didn’t turn out. This was the first recipe that actually worked for me–I had SO many failures before this. It did thicken up in the fridge.
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I tried this but it turned out very runny. I made my own almond milk in my Almond Cow. I used agar agar. I did use honey instead of maple syrup – could that be the issue? I’m wondering if using more agar agar would help – perhaps a full teaspoon. Or 1/2 teaspoon of agar agar and 1/2 teaspoon of tapioca flour. What do you think? It fermented and became very tart.
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Hi Linda–hmmm–that’s too bad! I doubt honey would be the issue. You could certainly increase the agar agar. I don’t think I’d add tapioca flour though because I think it would make the yogurt’s texture grainy. To be honest, I often feel like my plant-based yogurt is a bit hit-and-miss. Sometimes it’s perfect and other times, it takes days to set up properly in the fridge. Good luck with the agar agar!
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