Homemade Yogurt Cheese {Almost Cream Cheese}

Today’s recipe was new to me, but it turns out it’s been around a long, long time. What I thought was a new and interesting way to make homemade cream cheese is really just . . . Labneh. And labneh is certainly nothing new.

Labneh is the traditional Lebaneese way to make something that is like cream cheese and it is oh so simple to make. It’s just plain yogurt with the liquid (whey) allowed to drain away from it for several hours. What you’re left with after the liquid has drained off is a “yogurt cheese” with a much firmer consistency and a flavor much like cream cheese.

Making yogurt cheese (or homemade cream cheese or labneh or whatever we will call it) is a pretty straight-forward process of using appropriate yogurt and having patience as the liquid whey drains away. You can add some creativity to your yogurt by stirring in different flavorings such as salt, honey, garlic and chives, or lemon pepper.

I made my homemade yogurt cheese using the Dannon yogurt that was labeled as “All Natural Plain Yogurt”.  Apparently some yogurt you purchase in the store can have a form of gelatin in their product which my research showed might affect your results.  So I purchased a yogurt that showed the ingredients only as “Cultured Grade A Milk” so I knew there would be no other ingredients in there that might mess things up.

How to make Labneh (homemade cream cheese)

The basic method for making your own homemade cream cheese from yogurt is to wrap some of the yogurt in a lightweight material such as a flour sack towel or other lint-free lightweight material. I had a piece of plain white muslin fabric that I used. Then you let the liquid whey drain off.

Here’s the first method I tried. I lined a colander with the material. Then I put the colander over a bowl to catch the liquid whey that would drain off. I put the yogurt in the material-lined colander (I used about half of a 32 oz container). As soon as you do this you will see some liquid starting to seep away from the yogurt. For this method you should then place everything in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours (or even up to 24 hours) while you wait for the liquid to drain away from the yogurt.

One issue I had as I tried this was that the bowl I had my colander over wasn’t really deep enough. There was slightly over a cup of whey that was drained off when it was all said and done. My colander ended up kind of sitting in the liquid in the bowl about halfway through the process so I switched to this alternate method.

For this method, you would take the towel or fabric with the yogurt in it and gather up the edges to form a kind of “bag”. Then hang this bag from something to let the liquid whey drain off. I used my banana tree for this and put a plastic container under it to catch the liquid. My research showed people often use this method too and are pretty resourceful, using cupboard door handles and faucets as ideas of what to hang their bag of yogurt from as it is draining. Things should be OK for a few hours this way unrefrigerated.

Once you let the liquid whey drain away from your yogurt for several hours, you will end up with a ball of soft “cheese” that has a nice tangy flavor and thick consistency that is spreadable like cream cheese.

And then your homemade cream cheese is ready to use. You can add some flavorings to it, or just enjoy it plain. Have you ever tried making this type of cream cheese? Feel free to leave me a comment. I’d love to hear your experiences and advice!