I found myself with too much home-made yoghurt the other day, and thought I’d try to make some cheese. The yoghurt was quite runny, so I put it through a coffee filter to separate the whey. After about four hours, the yoghurt was a better consistency than it had been up to then, but not really cheese-y.
I mixed some salt into the yoghurt and left it overnight to separate further and was surprised at the amount of whey collected by morning – and more surprised by how much the yoghurt had reduced! In fact, there was hardly enough for a cheese!
I decided to make a small portion of spreadable cream cheese from it instead and I have to tell you, it feels a bit silly sharing this as a ‘recipe’ as it isn’t really one… it’s just mixing stuff together.
To make your home made cream cheese, mix salt (remember you’ve already added some, so taste before adding more – I found I didn’t need to!), pepper, herbs of choice, and garlic to the yoghurt. Mix well, transfer into a sealable container and refrigerate.
Simple as that.
The flavour is amazing. I love cream cheese on toast with a bit of salt and pepper anyway, but this is fantastic. I didn’t add garlic to the first batch, and absolutely loved it. You can change flavours to suit what you have too. For example:
- Plain cream cheese with salt and pepper is great on toast or crackers
- Chives and garlic
- Basil and sun dried tomato puree
- Honey and finely chopped walnuts
- Finely chopped smoked salmon
Sadly, my husband doesn’t like cheese with ‘bits’ in, so much to my feigned dismay, I have to share it only with Ameli.
I believe this should last about 7 – 10 days in the fridge, but it’s never lasted that long in our house.
We make this too – my daughter loves it.