Homemade Cream Cheese

It's so easy to make your own cream cheese (yogurt cheese, actually) and you need hardly any equipment, even less ingredients, and even lesser effort.

Homemade cream (yogurt) cheese

Ingredients (easily reduced or doubled)

1 cup plain whole (full-fat please) organic yogurt

Equipment

A large bowl or container

A sieve

Cheesecloth or a thin cloth or a kitchen towel

Method

1. Set-up as below:

2. Do nothing.

3. Leave it for a few hours and you get thick creamy Greek yogurt.

Leave it overnight and you get 1 cup of firm yet creamy plain cheese (and 1 cup of whey).

To be on the safe side, the cream cheese should last until the expiry date on the yogurt.

The whey can keep much longer, a month or so. Do not discard the whey! The whey is very useful for soaking your grains, or for making your own fermented vegetables, or just replace it with the liquid in stews or soups for a health boost!

You can add also anything you want to flavour it!

Garlic and Herbs Cream Cheese

1 cup of cream (yogurt) cheese

2 tbsp garlic powder (you can use mashed/pureed garlic, but careful, it won't last as long. roasted garlic would be divine.)

1 tsp each of dried parsley and mixed herbs

sea salt, black pepper

Compare this to the garlic-and-herbs cream cheese you find on the shelves:

Dried garlic, icing sugar, parsley, garlic oil, tapioca dextrin, stabiliser, vegetable oil, whey powder, basil.

Tsk.

Here are some other combinations you can try:

Sundried tomato and Basil (see how to make your own slow-dried tomatoes!)

Black Olive

Onion and Chive

Raspberry/ Strawberry/ Blueberry (for a sweet treat)

Any ideas? I've heard of the weirdest flavours.

You can even leave it plain, for a very versatile cream cheese. (cream cheese and smoked salmon! if I ever afford the latter..)