Making homemade yogurt in an Instant Pot is easy! Learn how to make Instant Pot yogurt that is creamy, delicious, and super cheap to make!

With just two ingredients, minimal effort, and a little patience, you can easily make yogurt right at home.

This post walk you through each step of the yogurt making process, from start to finish, so you are sure to have success.

Get ready to impress your family and enjoy the health benefits of homemade yogurt!

Try out these other great Instant Pot recipes: Instant Pot Shredded Beef (Only 7 ingredients!) and Instant Pot Shredded Chicken Tacos.

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What you’ll love about this homemade instant pot yogurt

Making yogurt in an Instant Pot is so rewarding and easy to do, you’ll wonder why you never did it before! Here’s why you’re going to love it:

Know what’s in it: When you make yogurt at home, you know exactly what’s in it, giving you peace of mind knowing that what you’re eating isn’t full of fillers, sugars, and preservatives.
So inexpensive: Buying yogurt from the grocery store can be expensive. Making yogurt in the Instant Pot is way cheaper, especially for the amount you get.
Easy: It is really easy to make Instant Pot yogurt. The process is hands off for the most part, making it something you can easily incorporate into you life.
Rewarding: I’ve been making a batch of homemade Instant Pot yogurt weekly for a while now, and I still feel so accomplished and proud of myself every time. Making Instant Pot yogurt is really rewarding.

Ingredients and equipment

You seriously only need two ingredients to make Instant Pot yogurt.

Milk – For nice thick and creamy yogurt, use whole fat milk. Milk with a lower fat content can be used successfully, but milk with a higher fat content will make a creamier, richer yogurt.
Yogurt with live and active cultures – Yes, you need yogurt to make yogurt, but only a small amount. The yogurt acts like a starter, providing the strains of bacteria that are needed for the yogurt making process. When choosing a yogurt, make sure it’s unsweetened and that it contains “live and active cultures.” The important cultures that should be present are Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus.

This is the equipment you’ll need to make Instant Pot yogurt from scratch:

Instant Pot – Any Instant Pot will work to make yogurt.
Thermometer – You’ll need to get the milk to a certain temperature a couple times during the yogurt making process, so you’ll need a thermometer to check the temperature of the milk.
Large bowl – This is nice, but not essential. A large bowl half filled with cool water can be used to set the inner pot in after heating up the milk. This will help cool down the milk to the needed temperature faster than just letting it sit in the Instant Pot.

How to make instant pot yogurt: step-by-step

The process of making yogurt in the Instant Pot is really pretty simple.

Essentially, you’re just heating milk up, cooling it down, stirring in starter, letting it incubate, and then chilling it. It’s not complicated, I promise! You can definitely do this.

Time needed: 1 day

Heat the milk to 180º F.
In a clean inner pot of an instant pot, add half a gallon of milk (1980 g). Place the lid on top (there’s no need to turn the vent to sealing) and press the yogurt button twice or until it says “boil.” The word boil will flash a couple of times, then stay on the screen. That means the boil process has started. The boil process will take about 25 minutes.

Once the boil process is done, the Instant Pot will beep several times and the screen will say “end.” Remove the lid and check the temperature of the milk. It should be around 180° F.

If the milk hasn’t reached 180° F, press the sauté button and bring to a boil, stirring often to keep from scorching. Check the temperature until the milk reaches 180º F. When it does, click cancel to stop sauté function.
Cool the milk to 105º F.
With a large spoon, skim off the skin that formed on the top of the milk. Let the milk cool down to 105º F. You can either let it sit in the Instant Pot and cool, but I find that takes a bit of time.

To speed up the cooling time, take the inner pot out of the Instant Pot and set it in a large bowl partially filled with cool water. The milk will cool quicker this way. Check the milk’s temperature every few minutes until it’s cooled to 105º F.
Stir in the yogurt starter.
Once it’s cooled, place the inner pot back into the Instant Pot (drying off the bottom of the inner pot if needed). Thoroughly stir in a couple tablespoons of yogurt that contains live and active cultures. If you forget to do this step, the milk will never become yogurt!
Incubate for 8 – 12 hours.
Place the lid back on the top (again, there’s no need to seal the vent), and press the yogurt button 3 times until the screen says 8:00. This number represents the number of hours the yogurt will incubate. The yogurt can incubate for anywhere from 8 – 12 hours.

Using the + button, you can adjust the time to up to 12 hours. I always do at least 10 hours because it makes the yogurt tangier. Make sure the light for normal is lit.

After adjusting the time, the screen will shortly change to 00:00. The yogurt will now incubate for the amount of hours you chose. The instant pot will count up from 00:00 all the way to the amount of hours you set (for example, after an 1 hour and 30 minutes, the screen will say 01:30).
Chill in the fridge.
After the set amount of hours passes, the yogurt will be fully incubated. The screen will say “end.” Do not stir the yogurt at this point, just take off the lid and remove the inner pot from the Instant Pot. Cover it with plastic wrap or a large plate, and put it in the fridge. Let it chill in the fridge for at least three hours or preferably overnight.
Enjoy!
In the morning, it’s fully chilled and ready to eat. Serve yourself up a bowl of delicious creamy homemade yogurt for breakfast. Put the rest of the finished yogurt in an airtight container and store in the fridge.

Yogurt making tips

Here are a few helpful tips to keep in mind when making instant pot yogurt at home.

Be smart about when you start. Choose a time a time to start making yogurt where you’ll be available 10 hours or so later to take the incubated yogurt out of the Instant Pot and into the fridge to chill. The best time to start making yogurt is in the morning. Usually I start the yogurt’s incubation process by around 9 in the morning. The yogurt is then fully incubated by around 7 in the evening and ready to be put it in the fridge overnight. By the next morning, it’s chilled, set, and ready for me to enjoy for breakfast (like in this Muesli Breakfast Bowl).
Clean the inner pot. Before pouring the milk into the inner pot, make sure it is very clean. Either wash it by hand using hot soapy water, or put it through the dishwasher.
Use yogurt with live and active cultures. When choosing the yogurt you’ll use as a starter, make sure that it is unsweetened and contains live and active cultures. The label should say “live and active cultures” on it and may even list the strains of bacteria in the ingredients (they will have names like Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus).
Do not stir before chilling. Do not stir or mess with the yogurt right after it has finished incubating. Stirring it at this point will keep the yogurt from setting. Just take the inner pot out of the Instant Pot, cover it, and put it in the fridge to chill all the way through.
Save a couple tablespoons for next time. When you’re putting the finished yogurt in airtight containers, take out a couple of tablespoons and keep that in a separate small container. This way you’ll be sure to have a yogurt starter for your next batch of Instant Pot yogurt.

How to store Instant Pot yogurt

Keep your finished Instant Pot yogurt in airtight containers in the fridge. Homemade yogurt can stay good for up to two weeks.

Conclusion

Making yogurt in the Instant Pot is easy to do and super rewarding. By following the easy steps and being patient, you can enjoy delicious, creamy yogurt at home.

This method not only saves money but also allows you to control what’s in your food. Now that you know how to make yogurt, grab some milk and a couple tablespoons of yogurt starter, and start your first batch today. I promise you’ll be impressed with the results!