Crock Pot or Slow Cooker Yogurt
on Sep 17, 2017, Updated Apr 17, 2025
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It’s so easy to make silky smooth Slow Cooker Yogurt at home with just two ingredients and prep time of only 5 minutes! This simple recipe saves money, reduces waste, and delivers fresh yogurt without any additives or preservatives.
🥛Just 5 minutes of prep, and then slow cooker does the rest while you sleep. Such an easy way to get another option for homemade breakfast or snacks into your meal rotation!
My 2 Best Tips For Making Slow Cooker Yogurt
- Temperature Matters: The first time you make this recipe, use a thermometer to verify your slow cooker’s heating pattern. The ideal temperature for yogurt cultures is 110-115°F (43-46°C). Too hot and you’ll kill the cultures; too cool and they won’t activate properly.
- Quality Starters Make Quality Yogurt: Choose a high-quality plain yogurt with live active cultures for your beginning starter. Brands like Mountain High, Fage, or Chobani work well. Then you can start saving your own starter from each of your homemade batches. After a few batches, you may notice your yogurt becoming less thick—this is the time to introduce a fresh commercial starter.
🩷 Melissa
I like to start this in the afternoon so that it’s ready to sit for its long 8-12 hour warm resting period overnight. We then wake up to fresh yogurt, and I’ll serve it with fresh fruit and some homemade granola.
This is a great way to to get organic yogurt on the cheap. You can buy a carton of organic milk and turn it into yogurt for about half the price of organic yogurt.
It is plain yogurt, but you can add honey, jams, fresh fruit, and just about anything else you like. I also use it in place of sour cream in most recipes.
Slow Cooker Yogurt
Ingredients
- 1/2 gallon (8 cups) whole milk (you'll get a thinner product with a lower fat content milk)
- 1/2 cup commercial plain yogurt that says “Live and Active Cultures” on the tub, I have great success with Mountain High yogurt for my culture.
Instructions
- In a large crock pot, add the milk. Add the lid. Turn it on low for around 2 ½ hours.
- After that time has passed, unplug the crock pot and let it sit for 3 hours. I always set a timer for these or I don’t remember.
- After the 3 hours has passed, stir in the ½ cup of yogurt. Replace the lid of the crock pot and cover with two big towels or a blanket. Let rest for 8 to 12 hours (overnight works well). In the morning you'll have yogurt!
- Place it in a half-gallon mason jar and refrigerate for a few hours before serving. It will thicken up in the fridge. Keep a ½ cup of this yogurt for your next batch and say goodbye to buying yogurt!
- You can also let the yogurt strain in cheese cloth in the fridge for a few hours and you'll get a thicker Greek yogurt.
Video
Notes
- I highly recommend getting a little instant-read thermometer to make homemade yogurt since it’s all about the temperature.
- The goal is to scald the milk which takes place around 180°F. Check it with a thermometer the first time to see if the “warm” setting is warm enough or if maybe an hour and 45 minutes would work on low. Once you figure it out, I don’t think you would have to use the thermometer every time.
- After the milk is scalded, the waiting time is meant to bring the milk down to around 110-115°F so it’s still warm but won’t kill your yogurt culture.
- Serve with fresh fruit and granola
- Make yogurt bowls: 5 Easy Healthy Yogurt Bowl Ideas
- Homemade Fruit on the Bottom Yogurt Cups
- 4 Ingredient Healthy Strawberry Frozen Yogurt (5 minute recipe!)
- It also goes great in smoothies like my Key Lime Pie Smoothie, Strawberry Kiwi Smoothie, or Avocado Smoothie.
- Or try it in these amazing Soft and Puffy Greek Yogurt Sugar Cookies!
Nutrition
Recipe FAQs
Homemade yogurt typically stays fresh in the refrigerator for 1-2 weeks when stored in an airtight container. The flavor may become more tart over time as the cultures continue to slowly develop.
Several factors can affect thickness: using ultra-pasteurized milk, milk with lower fat content, culture that wasn’t active enough, or temperature issues during incubation. For thicker yogurt, try using whole milk, ensuring proper temperatures are maintained, or strain the finished yogurt through cheesecloth.
After your yogurt is made, simply line a fine-mesh strainer with cheesecloth, place it over a bowl, and pour in your finished yogurt. Allow it to drain in the refrigerator for 2-4 hours for a thicker Greek-style yogurt. The longer it strains, the thicker it becomes.
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Did you make this recipe? Leave a ⭐️ review and share it on Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest!
Second time making yogurt with your recipe. Simple easy and delicious! Thank you. I am going to drain it a few hours this time, but it was nice and thick last time, half way between regular and Greek style.
I wasted a whole gallon of raw milk on this . Ppl say not to cry over spilled milk . But I could’ve cried over this . It did not set up well at all . I was skeptical of a crockpot yogurt , but I couldn’t find my normal recipe and decided to give it a shot . Very disappointed. Gave it to our dog .
Did you scald you milk before? Raw milk, because it hasn’t been pasteurized has a different protein structure than pasteurized store milk. I have made this with raw milk before but did have to get it hot enough first. And that being said, you can also always reinoculated the milk and try again if it didn’t set the first time. Especially if you pasteurize it again first.
This recipe is WONDERFUL, I wasn’t expecting it to come out as well as it did. I have been using a yogurt maker for years, but wanted to make a bigger batch and try using my crockpot. This turned out great and so so much easier than heating the milk in a pan, cooling, pouring into small containers, etc.
Thank you for sharing!
If I’m using milk that is already pasteurized, do I still have to scald my milk, or can I just heat it up to 115-110 degrees, mix in my start culture, and then cover it overnight?
Heating up the milk higher than that doesn’t something to the milk proteins and I have found the yogurt will be thicker than if you skip that heating step.
If I double the recipe, and use a gallon of milk, will the cook times change? Thank you for the recipe!
It’ll be the same! You can always use the temperature cues to check on things.
Hi Mel i made this to the letter, but it is very runny, will this thicken once cooled? Thanks Roo
Like thin yogurt runny or still milk? You can always run it through the process again if it’s runny! But if it’s just thin yogurt runny, it’ll thicken up in the fridge but if it’s still like milk it didn’t inoculate correctly.
Hi, I have never made yogurt before and have two questions:
1. I may have missed this info on the site if so, I apologize. How long will it last in the fridge when done? I’m concerned that I will not be able to use it all before it goes bad, that’s one reason why I don’t buy yogurt from the store anymore.
2. Can I cut the recipe in half, so I don’t waste it? If so, do I change anything about the recipe other than the measurements?
Thanks so much!
It lasts about as long as store yogurt, so a few weeks. And you can cut the recipe in half you just need to note that it will take much less time for the temps to change and so I’d go off of temperature and not the timing.
When I make this the first time, can I use Greek yogurt cultures, or should it be just plain non-Greek yogurt?
I almost always use Greek yogurt, as long as it’s an active culture yogurt it shouldn’t matter if it’s Greek or not, that’s just how strained it is…
I have probably given this recipe to a dozen people because I love it. The difficult part about telling people about it is they can not get how simple it is. I use my jelly bag strainer and jar, it doesn’t quite hold oall of it at first but it only takes a few minutes to drain down. I like mine a little thicker than most.
So good! Thank you!!