Crock Pot or Slow Cooker Yogurt
Updated May 02, 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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I used this recipe with lactose free whole milk, and it came out perfectly. Note that the lactase added to this milk (the enzyme which breaks down lactose) coverts milk sugar (Lactose) into two natural types of glucose, so there is sugar in the milk which the culture uses.
Ohhh thank you for letting us know that it worked! That’s so helpful!
Wow. This totally worked! I decided to make my own yogurt cause I go through a lot of it and wanted a way to have it in larger quantities than I can get at the store. To be fair – I had no idea what I was getting myself into. So. I found this site, followed the directions, threw some towels around my crockpot and hoped for the best overnight. In the morning…still totally liquid. I realized the temp had dropped below 100 so I turned the crockpot on for a few minutes to let it get back up around 110, turned it off and wrapped the crockpot in towels better than before. Went shopping and figured it was a lost cause. Got home and voila, yogurt! I’m amazed! Total incubation time for me was around 15 hours but that’s cause the temp dropped a bit too low. It’s draining now. Yay! Thank you for posting this recipe!!
I just tried this for my first time making yogurt. It was so much easier than I expected! I started it at noon and didn’t want to get up to finish it at midnight, I just waited to finish it until I woke up in the morning. My total time was closer to 18-20 hours instead of 12. It was very close to greek yogurt after that amount of time. I’m really happy with how it turned out!
Ohhhh I love that, thank you for taking the time to come back and let us know what work. So helpful!
So leave the yogurt out over night nor refrigerated and refrigerate the next morning?
Yep, it needs time while it’s warm/at room temperature for the yogurt culture to grow and “inoculate” the milk, aka turn it into yogurt!
Hi,
Can you half the recipe?
Amy
Yep! If you do that you’ll want to go with the temperatures the milk needs to be and not the cooking time, less milk will get to scalding faster! The resting time (around over night) will be the same though.
I am amazed at how simple it is to make yogurt! Thank you for the recipe, as well as the one for homemade granola they make a delicious combination. I strained the yogurt and it made a big difference. It turned out so creamy and smooth!
YAY!!! And you are the FIRST PERSON to EVER upload a picture to my site, it’s a new function and I’m so glad you are using it!
I just found your site over the weekend and I cant stay away. There are so many good recipes, my husband and 4 kids have been enjoying the results ? Thank you for sharing, We had the corn chowder with corn bread tonight, soooooo good!
Yay! You’re making all my favorites! Thank you for leaving such a kind comments. Might I suggest my chocolate chip cookies, chunky chicken noodle soup, and my mom’s dinner roll recipe for tonight 🙂 ENJOY!
Is it possible to double this recipe and everything will turn out the same?
I think it’ll be fine if that much fits in your slow cooker and if you go by the temperatures I’ve listed instead of times.
I’m looking to try making yoghurt but both my son and I are lactose free. Do you think it’d still work if I used lactose free milk and yoghurt?
In my mind it works because you are just adding the culture to milk, but I did a little googling and most people do not have luck making homemade yogurt with lactose free milk. I wonder if there is something that you could add to help it work… I’ll keep researching this!
I think in the process of making yogurt the lactose is destroyed or lessened to a great degree. I could eat yogurt but, not consume milk because of stomach distress.
Ohhhh that’s very interesting, but that does make sense to me. Thank you for the tip.
Yes, my mother is lactose intolerant, but she can eat whole milk yogurt no problem. I think you are right about the lactose.
I want to try this recipe but would like to know how can I make it vanilla flavored. What do I need to add or do differently? Thank you in advance.
I haven’t had any luck flavoring while making, we just flavor it in small batches after it’s made. You can add honey and vanilla after it’s already set. When you do mix it though it tends to make it thinner, so I normally just use jam or honey to flavor it right when we are making it UNLESS you are straining it for a thicker greek yogurt, then I flavor the whole batch and stick it in the fridge. Does that help?
You can add sweetened condensed milk or dairy coffee creamer before the incubation period.
I know people have added things but I generally don’t. I find that sometimes the live cultures have a hard time competing with sugar so the yogurt doesn’t always turn out the same when I start adding other things first, we just add it once it’s made and strained.
Can I use powdered milk?
I have no idea! I’ve never heard of any one trying it.
I know people who have used dry milk – try to get it with some fat in it if you can or add a tiny bit of cream.
I saw on another recipe that used powdered milk to thicken it.
That would be fun to play with!