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Coconut Milk Kefir “Yogurt”

Prep

Inactive

Total

Yield 1 cup

Ingredients

Instructions

1.    Place room temperature coconut milk into a glass jar.  Add kefir grains.  Cover with paper towel or cheesecloth secured with the ring of a mason jar lid or an elastic band.

2.    Let the kefir grains do their thing for 24-48 hours (tasting periodically to see if the culture has reached your desired sourness).

3.    Strain the kefir culture through a metal strainer.  Place the strained kefir grains into fresh milk to start the next culture.

4.    Line a metal sieve, colander or funnel with 12-14 layer thick cheesecloth (alternately you could use a yogurt cheese bag, a kefir strainer, a piece of muslin cloth or a clean linen tea towel).  Place sieve over a medium-sized bowl to catch the whey.

5.    Pour strained kefir culture into the cheesecloth-lined sieve and place the entire bowl and sieve into the refrigerator.  After 1 hour, check the liquid in the bottom of the bowl and make sure that it is mostly clear (it will have a little opaque white swirling around in it, but it should look a lot like the liquidy whey from the top of a yogurt container).  If it isn’t clear, dump it back into the cheese cloth and add another few layers of cheese cloth or a second nut-milk bag or even a coffee filter to strain out the whey.

6.    Check how thick your yogurt is after about 4 hours.  It will take anywhere between 4-24 hours to strain enough whey to have thick, creamy yogurt consistency (you can actually continue straining to make a fresh kefir cheese, although if you are going to attempt this, it’s better to strain at room temperature).  Once the desired consistency is reached, scrape the yogurt into a bowl or container for storage and discard the whey (or better yet, use for another purpose).  The yield is approximately 1 cup of yogurt for 1 can of coconut milk.

7.    Enjoy the yogurt plain (maybe with some berries or Paleo granola) or flavor with honey, vanilla and/or pureed fruit.  To make a lovely vanilla yogurt, add 1 Tbsp honey and 1 tsp alcohol-free vanilla extract.  For fruit yogurts, I typically add ¼ cup pureed fresh or frozen fruit to 1 cup of yogurt.  Stir to incorporate and enjoy!

Recipe by The Paleo Mom at https://www.thepaleomom.com/recipe-coconut-milk-kefir-yogurt/