THE CLEANEST, CHEAPEST, & EASIEST HOMEMADE COCONUT YOGURT

Plant-based yogurt is delicious and all, but it usually comes with a high price tag if you're looking for one free of nasty preservatives and fillers. This is where my HOMEMADE COCONUT YOGURT comes in. It's cheaper than what you will find at the stores AND it only contains two simple ingredients -let's call it, Clean Coco-yo.

I first came across this idea of fermenting my own yogurt when I found myself scouring the dairy-free refrigerator aisles at Wegmans to no avail. If you read my recent post on my DO'S AND DON'TS of the grocery store, you would know I'm not a big fan of products with long ingredients lists, so I was on the hunt for a plant-based yogurt that was clean - no additives, no preservatives, and no unnecessary added sugars.

Unfortunately, while there were some choices (Lavva Pili Nut Yogurt and The Coconut Collaborative), these yogurts were beginning to break the bank week - by - week. Let's face it, a girl in grad school simply cannot afford to spend $20+ on gourmet yogurt every week. That's when it hit me...hey, by making my own yogurt, I could cut my burden of these unnecessary ingredients in half, while saving some coin in the process. All it took was a bottle of quality probiotics and a few cans of coconut milk to cut my monthly yogurt spending in half. Let me break it down for you..

Seeing that my yogurt brand of choice was Lavva, priced at $2.49 a piece, I was spending roughly $15 a week on yogurt, eating it six days a week. This means that I was cashing out $60 a month on yogurt alone...straight up embarrassing. Fast forward to now - me channeling Martha Stewart, fermenting coconut milk left and right in my kitchen, I cut my monthly yogurt spending to $35 a month. How'd I do this? By using Nature's Promise Full-Fat coconut milk ($2.29 a can), which would ultimately produce three days worth of creamy deliciousness, and Renew Life's Ultimate Flora 50 Billion Probiotic ($17.19 for 30 servings), I effortlessly save myself money while consuming a higher quality probiotic yogurt. Sounds like a win-win for me.

I'm sure at this point you're saying to yourself - "okay, saving money sounds cool and all, but not if that means I have to sacrifice the convenience of buying pre-made yogurt". Guess what...making your own yogurt does not require any additional effort than walking down the dairy aisle and grabbings cups on cups of yogurt! Here's how it works...

HOW TO MAKE CLEAN COCO-YO

1. Shake your can of coconut milk well, and pour into a mason jar or storage container of your choosing.

2. Carefully empty your probiotic capsule into the coconut milk.

3. Using a wooden or plastic spoon, carefully mix the probiotics into the milk, being sure to fully integrate the powder.**

4. Cover with cheesecloth or a nut milk bag and let it sit on your counter, out of direct sunlight, for 24 - 48 hours depending on your desired consistency.

5. Fermentation is complete once the coconut milk is no longer a liquid texture - you should also be able to smell that staple yogurt aroma that's a bit tangy. This is when you can add a little vanilla extract to give it some flavor, or enjoy it plain like me!

6. Cover your yogurt with a lid and place it in the refrigerator. Note that your yogurt will firm up a bit more once you do this. The finished product will stay fresh for 3 - 5 days.

**It is imperative that you use either a plastic or wooden spoon to mix your probiotic into your coconut yogurt. Metal can interfere with the bacteria in your probiotic effectively rendering it useless...so if you wanna see fermentation, use wood or plastic!

And it's as simple as that. A few notes on the ingredients - when purchasing your probiotic, aim for one that contains at least 30 billion CFU. The higher the concentration of bacterial strains, the less capsules you will have to use per can of coconut milk. Personally, using Renew Life's Ultimate Flora 30 Billion CFU probiotic, I use 1 - 2 capsules per can of coconut milk depending on my desired consistency. If I want thicker yogurt more similar to the texture of greek yogurt, I use 2 capsules. If I'm feeling a consistency in between that of kefir and your store-bought plant-based yogurts, I use one. In terms of the coconut milk you decide to use, it is important to find one that has minimal ingredients of course. Now, if you like a thick yogurt, I advise choosing a full-fat milk that contains guar gum - the fat content and guar gum together will help to prevent the milk from separating into coconut water and coconut meat. I have personally experimented with Whole Foods' 365 Full-Fat Coconut Milk, More Than Fair's Fair Trade Organic Full-Fat Coconut Milk, and Nature's Promise Full-Fat Coconut Milk, and while they all contain guar gum, Nature's Promise was the only brand that gave me the thick yogurt consistency that I love.

STEP-BY-STEP TUTORIAL

Now, aside from the financial benefits of at-home fermentation, making your own coconut yogurt has its advantages in probiotic content and quality, ability to personalize it to your specific health status, & more...

BENEFITS OF HOMEMADE COCONUT YOGURT

1. SAVE SOME COIN

Yeah buying your first bottle of probiotics for homemade yogurt may be a little pricier than buying a cup of Chobani at first, but guess what...you don't need to use probiotic capsules with every can of coconut milk. Simply take 3 tbsp of your first strain of yogurt and mix it in (using a wooden or plastic spoon!) with a new can of milk and continue with the recipe as usual. You can make two capsules last for weeks as the yogurt itself has enough bacteria in it to keep the strain going!

2. ENHANCED PROBIOTIC CONTENT

It is often hard to know whether the probiotics in your store-bought yogurts are still alive and active. By fermenting your own yogurt, you experience the activity of the probiotic bacterial strains in real-time, seeing the change in texture.

3. PERSONALIZATION

Believe it or not, research has shown that some probiotic bacterial strains are more beneficial to certain conditions like ADHD, IBS, etc. than others. Making your own yogurt allows you to chose a probiotic that contains strains of bacteria specific to your condition, rather than the most conventionally used strains you find in commercial products.

4. REDUCED SUGAR INTAKE

Take a look at the nutrition labels of some of the most popular yogurt brands and it may surprise you how much sugar is added. Since our taste buds are so used to the sugars hiding in even the most savory of our processed food items, companies often add grams on grams of sweetness to commercially-produced yogurt. Noting that sugar, especially in its refined state, feeds the disease-causing microbes in our body, fermenting your own yogurt can dramatically decrease your daily sugar consumption.

5. SELF-EMPOWERMENT

Maybe it's the nutrition nerd in me, but there's something empowering about nourishing my body with something I took the time and effort to create with my bare hands. Fermenting my own yogurt has equipped me with another tool in my cooking toolbox - another meal that I don't have to have someone else make for me.

With all that being said, get to fermenting! If you decide to give homemade yogurt a shot, let me see your finished products! Tag me on Instagram @thedecodeproject or slide a picture into my DM's...I'm so excited over this yogurt, as you can probably tell by now, so I'd love to hear your experience with it too.

***Keep in mind, if you have a tree nut allergy or simply do not like the taste of coconut milk (whaaaaat?!), feel free to use a different type of plant-based milk to ferment your own yogurt! I have not tested this method out with anything other than coconut milk, but give it a shot and let me know how it goes! I hope to do some experimenting with different nut-based yogurts myself here in the near future. ***