Paleo Yogurt Pots

I really like yogurt. But I’m never, ever going to buy a yogurt maker. It’s not even that I’m a little intimidated by the whole live cultures thing, it’s just that I don’t have space anywhere in my kitchen for another appliance. Even if it looks really cool. And I really, really want one. Because LIVE CULTURES. It’s like SCIENCE. I kind of dig the whole food science thing. So anyway, a yogurt maker is out, but I really wanted yogurt. Even though it’s not paleo and even though I very rarely eat any kind of dairy. Therefore, logic told me, “make Paleo yogurt!”. Without the aforementioned cultures and machinery. Uh, ok.

How did I get into this endeavor again?

Paleo Yogurt Pots from http://meatified.com - no cultures or fancy equipment needed! #paleo #dairyfree #yogurt #glutenfree

How to make Paleo Yogurt – without a yogurt machine!

Reading through lots of homemade yogurt recipes showed that it should be pretty simple. They are essentially all variations on this theme: milk of some kind + culture + thickening agent. Well, I wasn’t going to use dairy, so coconut milk would suffice here. I was skipping the whole live cultures bit, anyway, so leaving them out was easy. Now all I needed was a thickener: yay for grass fed gelatin! And bonus points for nutritional value, too! I knew I needed to thicken up the coconut milk enough that it would be creamy but fluffy and spoonable. The downside was that I didn’t want it to end up setting completely – anyone remember set yogurts? Bleeearrgh, I used to hate those things. If I wanted jello, I would have gotten jello! Anyway. The way I got around this was simple. I added grass fed gelatin to my coconut milk and refrigerated it until it set. Then I removed it from the fridge and used my food processor to blend it together. Ta-da! Now I had a creamy, yogurt-a-like!

Paleo Yogurt Pots from http://meatified.com - no cultures or fancy equipment needed! #paleo #dairyfree #yogurt #glutenfree

You will want to sweeten and flavor your yogurt to suit your tastes. I added a splash of lime juice to mine to mimic the little bit of tang I personally like in a fresh yogurt. You can leave that out, if you want. Mr Meatified likes his pretty sweet and vanilla flavored, so that’s what we’ve gone for here. If you’re not sure how you like your yogurt, just keep tasting and tweaking the recipe before you add the gelatin. You’ll get it perfect in no time! One word of warning, though: once you have completed the final blending step, eat your Paleo yogurt right away. If you leave it too long, the gelatin will re-set. At that point, it’s still yummy, but not really a yogurt substitute. If your yogurt does reset, simply blend it again until smooth. Top with your favorite fruits and more! I usually make this and let it set overnight, then throw it in the food processor in the morning for a quick, easy breakfast!

Paleo Yogurt Pots from http://meatified.com - no cultures or fancy equipment needed! #paleo #dairyfree #yogurt #glutenfree

Use the best quality gelatin you can find

I prefer to use grass fed gelatin in my yogurt and other treats. Why? Because the animals from whom the gelatin is sourced are not fed any grains or soy.  This grass fed gelatin brand is “hormone free, pesticide free and GMO free” – plus it’s easy and cheap to purchase online!

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Paleo Yogurt Pots

This coconut milk based paleo yogurt-a-like is simple, nutritious and doesn’t require either cultures OR a yogurt maker! Top it with your favorite fruit and enjoy! This is very IMPORTANT: follow the instructions on your gelatin! I used this brand of grass fed gelatin and my instructions reflect this.

  • Prep Time: 1 hour 10 mins
  • Cook Time: 5 mins
  • Total Time: 1 hour 15 mins
  • Yield: 6 servings 1x

Ingredients

Scale

For the Paleo yogurt:

To serve:

  • 1 1/22 cups strawberries, chopped
  • Optional, omit for AIP: crushed pistachios to garnish

Instructions

To make the yogurt:

  1. Add the gelatin to a small jug or cup, along with 3 tbl of the coconut milk. Use a fork to stir the gelatin and coconut milk mixture together. Set aside.
  2. Pour the remaining coconut milk into a saucepan and whisk in the raw honey, vanilla extract and lime juice.
  3. Turn the burner to low and add the gelatin mixture to the pan. Gently warm the coconut milk until warm, whisking until the gelatin is combined and lump free.
  4. Pour the yogurt mixture into a bowl or jar and refrigerate for at least 1 hour so that the gelatin sets. I usually do this before bed for yogurt in the morning!
  5. When you are ready to eat, pour it into a food processor and process until smooth. Don’t over process as this will introduce air into the mixture and the texture won’t be right!

To assemble:

  1. Spoon half of the yogurt mixture into serving dishes. Layer with the chopped strawberries.
  2. Top the dishes with the remainder of the yogurt. Garnish with extra chopped strawberries and crushed pistachios if you want to!
  3. Serve and eat immediately once blended. If the yogurt is re-refrigerated or left out too long, it will re-set again. If that happens, you will need to re-blend it.

Notes

For best results, use a food processor rather than a blender. Without additional liquid, most blenders will not be able to handle the thickness of the set “yogurt” (although please let me know if you test this out in a blender that is more powerful than my old and cheap version!).
If your kitchen is cold, the “yogurt” will reset fast, leaving you with a “set” texture. If that is the case, you can add some water to the food processor until the texture is to your liking.
If you like your yogurt more loose, use only 2 tsp of gelatin; add more if you like it firmer.

Looking for more AIP Breakfast Ideas?

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WHAT’S GREAT ABOUT AMAZING AIP BREAKFASTS:
  • All of the recipes are 100% compliant with The Paleo Approach
  • It’s been created by 26 bloggers who all use the AIP themselves
  • It has 85 breakfast themed AIP recipes, many of which were created specifically for this book
  • Over half of the recipes can easily be modified for low-FODMAP, GAPS/SCD, low-histamine, and coconut-free diets using the handy substitution charts included in the book
WHAT’S IN AMAZING AIP BREAKFASTS:
  • Beverages: How about trying a delicious herbal AIP Coffee (check out the sneak peek recipe here!) or Rooibos “Latte” again?
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  • Skillets: one pan meals are the best and you have recipes like Sweet Potato, Pancetta and Apple Hash, Sausage Fennel and Cherry Stir Fry and Cinnamon Pork and Apple Skillet to choose from!
  • Soups: these are actually my favorite thing to eat in the morning – just warm and enjoy! How about creamy Leek & Sweet Potato Soup or Slow Cooker Breakfast Stew?
  • Patties: you don’t have to stick to plain sausage! Try an AIP Breakfast Stack, some Tuna Cakes with Green Olives or some Ginger Green Onion Pork Patties to liven things up
  • Pancakes: choose from 7 pancake recipes… then move on to Plantain Waffles or Applesauce Muffins
See all the details and scoop up your copy of 85 Amazing AIP Breakfasts here!

Paleo Yogurt Pots from http://meatified.com - no cultures or fancy equipment needed! #paleo #dairyfree #yogurt #glutenfree

42 comments

  1. OLA,
    Do you think I could substitute maple syrup for honey? Where I live you cannot get ‘real’ honey, but I do have a good supply of maple syrup?

    1. Yes, I think that would be fine! You may need to use a little less as it’s more liquid than honey, but I don’t think that will really matter too much 🙂

  2. Can I assume when you say coconut milk, you mean the canned coconut milk and not the thinner stuff? Also, how do you think it would work to add chia seeds to it before refrigerating?

    1. Yes, absolutely. I mean the full fat coconut milk that comes in cans rather than the beverage type stuff. I haven’t tried it with chia seeds – do you mean instead of the gelatin? I’m not sure you would need both. If you used just chia seeds I think you could get it to work without the gelatin as long as your blender can deal with the small seeds and not just miss them, leaving them whole.

      1. No, actually, I was thinking of them in addition to the gelatin. I’ve been mixing chia seeds and whey powder and coconut milk and vanilla and cinnamon for a pudding like treat.
        I do have some gelatin on hand. I’ve been mixing it with my shampoo to thicken my hair. I love it when I see recipes that interest me and I have the ingredients already! 🙂

        1. I think it would be fun to try out: the worst that would happen is that you’d get a pudding, right? And yes to the “I HAVE THE INGREDIENTS”! feeling! 🙂 I’d love to hear how yours turns out!

  3. Instead of gelatin, have you tried using arrowroot powder? I’ve got a ton and want to give it a shot to help thicken things up.

    Also, would it work if you used a probiotic capsule and just mixed it in?

    1. I haven’t tried it, but I suspect the arrowroot might just end up making more of a paste.
      I’m afraid I have no experience at all with the probiotics, sorry! There are recipes out there for coconut milk yogurt which uses them, though, but it would be much more time consuming.

      1. Thank you, this recipe is more of a pudding. It looks delicious and healthy, but I was looking for a real dairy-free probiotic yogurt.

  4. Without adding sweeteners does it still taste distinctly coconutty, or do the lime and gelatin mellow it out a bit? I’m craving some simple, tangy plain yogurt and am not patient enough to experiment with cultures.

    1. I haven’t made it without any sweetener at all, but I don’t think it should taste overly coconut-y once you’ve added the lime. You could definitely increase the lime, too. If you experiment with the base coconut milk / lime juice ratios and taste it before you add the gelatin, you should be able to tweak it to your taste 🙂 Let me know how it turns out if you do make an unsweetened version!

      1. I did it! Well, sorta, I added to much gelatin, I think, so the texture was way off, but the taste was fantastic. I did a test with a 1/2 cup coconut milk and kept squeezing in a half a lime until I was satisfied with the flavor. It ended up a tropical lime, not sweet but not bitter, light taste. Definitely satisfying without sparking “dessert” or “treat” sensations.

  5. So I just made this last night and when I woke up and put it in the blender It wouldn’t process correctly. It couldn’t get past the tough curdled look and feel. To much gelatin perhaps? I added more milk and re-blended. it helped a but but still wasn’t perfect. It was more like a custard texture then a smooth creamy texture.

    1. Hi Clarissa, thanks for letting me know. Lately I’ve been making this in my new food processor, which has turned out much smoother than my old, cheap blender. When I made it most recently, I realized that because it is super cold in my kitchen the gelatin resets really fast, which means I am having to re-test the recipe. Until I do, I have to recommend that this is made in a food processor for best results. I have also found that you can process in water a little at a time to smooth out the texture. I hope that helps and thank you again for the feedback!

  6. I’m going to try this one for sure. Quick question, where did you get the glasses from. They are adorable, I need to get some!

      1. Oh yes I know the ones, thank you very much, just found
        meatified and I’m hooked, love your page 🙂

          1. I don’t know for sure because I’ve never left it more than a day or two, but after a few days the fat in coconut milk will go rancid – I wouldn’t leave it more than 2 – 3 days myself.

  7. HI. If I was to make homemade coconut milk would this still work? I’m asking because I don’t think homemade coconut milk is thick like the canned full fat version….

    1. I haven’t tried this with homemade coconut milk – I suspect it would work, but you may end up with a thinner, less creamy version.

  8. This is a genius idea. I made it, and the texture was perfect but it had a way off putting taste. But I didn’t taste it before I put it the gelatin, so I take full responsibility for that. I’ll totally be making this again, I have been dying for a yogurt parfait and this recipe is going to make that happen! Plus, it’s inexpensive to make, which is a huge plus!

    1. If the gelatin is coming through a bit too much for you, try adding a little more citrus for tang, or reducing the gelatin by maybe a half teaspoon. Once it’s blended smooth, you could then try blending in some fruit for flavor, too 🙂

  9. Thank you so much! I am newly off dairy and yogurt is the only thing I really miss! I made this and it turned out fantastic!!

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