[Vietnamese Recipes] Instant Pot Yogurt

If you’ve never had Vietnamese Yogurt, you are missing out. It is the best type of yogurt in the entire world, second only to German yogurt (which I absolutely love and can’t find in the states). Vietnamese Yogurt is sweet and a little tart, and it tastes best when frozen.

When I was growing up in Vietnam, we would eat our yogurt frozen in little plastic bags. You’d bite one end off, and slowly suck at at the frozen yogurt. It is the BEST thing for a hot summer afternoon.

I bought these glass baby food jars on Amazon, and they work perfectly for homemade yogurt. You could also put the Vietnamese yogurt in plastic bags like they do in Vietnam, but I think the glass jars are easier to store in the freezer. They stack on top of each other very well.

Vietnamese Yogurt is super easy to make in the Instant Pot. If your Instant Pot has a yogurt function, you can totally make this recipe.

All you need are a few simple ingredients – sweetened condensed milk (the Longevity Brand is the best and most traditional for Vietnamese yogurt), milk, plain yogurt, and hot water.

When it comes to the milk you use, whole milk is obviously the best choice. It has more fat, which makes the yogurt creamer and just heavenly. However, I’ve also made plenty of Vietnamese yogurt using 2%, low-fat milk (because that’s what my family prefers to drink).

It’s also very important that the yogurt that you use has live active cultures. You need a yogurt starter with active bacteria to make Vietnamese yogurt. Most plain yogurts have live cultures. It is super important to read labels! I have never tried making Vietnamese yogurt from already flavored yogurt – like raspberry yogurt, for example, however, as long as it has live active cultures, I think it would still work. It just wouldn’t taste like traditional Vietnamese yogurt.

The Vietnamese yogurt will incubate in the Instant Pot for 10 hours. However, if you want a tarter yogurt, increase this time to longer. If you don’t like your yogurt as tart, decrease the time. I’d recommend using 10 hours when you first make this recipe, and then next time, adjust the time to what suits you best.

Vietnamese Yogurt will last in the fridge for a week, but ideally, you should freeze the yogurt and enjoy it the old fashioned way, frozen and simply delicious.

Instant Pot Vietnamese Yogurt

A recipe to make Vietnamese Yogurt in the Instant Pot using four simple ingredients: sweetened condensed milk, hot water, plain yogurt with live cultures, and milk.
In this recipe, use the condensed milk can to measure the other ingredients.

Course Snack
Cuisine Asian, Vietnamese
Keyword Yogurt Recipe

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 10 hours
Total Time: 10 hours 5 minutes

Servings: 10 jars

Equipment
Instant Pot

Ingredients

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk (Longevity Brand is best)
1 can boiling hot water
2 cans cold milk (whole or low-fat milk work fine)
1 can plain yogurt with live active cultures
1 cup water for the instant pot

Instructions

In a large pitcher, mix together the sweetened condensed milk with the boiling water. Stir well until the milk has dissolved.
Take milk straight from the fridge and add in two cans worth. (It is very important the milk is cold.)
If you have a thermometer, measure the temperature of the mixture. It should be below 130 degrees F. Probiotic bacteria in yogurt dies when heated past 130 degrees. (See note below)*
Stir in the yogurt and mix well. Pour the yogurt mixture into clean, sterilized glass jars.
Then, place in the Instant Pot. You can stack the jars on top of each other. Add 1 cup of water to the Instant Pot.
Close the lid (make sure the vent is set to "sealing.") Select "Yogurt" on the Instant Pot. Set for 10 hours and wait.
The screen will display "Yogt" when it's done.
Place in the refrigerator or freezer when the yogurt is cool. Enjoy!

Notes

If you don’t have a thermometer, and you poured cold milk straight from the fridge (you didn’t let the milk sit on the counter), you should be fine. When I measured the yogurt, my the temperature was somewhere between 90 and 100 degrees F.