Labneh is a soft middle-eastern cheese, often called yoghurt cheese.

It is called this because, yep, you guessed it: it’s made from yoghurt.

This is the shit-easiest recipe you will ever use, I promise. And it is totally gourmet.

photograph of making labneh

Making labneh from older yoghurt.

Ingredients

  • Yoghurt
  • Salt
  • Muslin or other fine cloth

Method

  • Mix 1 tsp of salt into the yoghurt
  • Line a bowl with the fabric
  • Put the yoghurt into the middle of the fabric
  • Gather up the edges and secure it somehow – I used a hair-tie, a small rolling pin, and various implements in the house – and suspend the yoghurt over the bowl.
  • If it’s hot weather, do this in the fridge. If it’s autumn or winter, leave it on your bench; it’ll be ok.
  • Leave overnight.
  • In the morning you will have a soft cottage-like cheese.

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Hints!

  • If you strain it with a weight on top, you’ll get more of the whey out, resulting in a firmer cheese.
  • Firmer labneh (which you can obtain by straining for another 5-6 hours, or with a weight on it) can be rolled into balls and stored covered in olive oil – it will keep for about a year if kept in the fridge!
  • Eat labneh as a base for dips, as a soft cheese on its own, or use it for whatever else you’d use soft cheese
  • It goes well with fresh herb flavours, like dill, or mint, or garlic, or pepper, or anything really
  • If you use homemade yoghurt, the results are better, but in fact any yoghurt will do
  • If you use discounted fruit yoghurt, you have the perfect, sweet, half-way-there-already fruity cheesecake base! (This was a tip given to me by Mr Jeffrey. I’ve yet to try it. But I will! What a brilliant idea!)
  • It is the super cheap, frugal way to make soft cheeses that are often very expensive
  • Save the drained whey and use it as:
    • a buttermilk replacement (omg the scones!)
    • cook it and turn it into ricotta
    • use as the liquid in baking (or other recipes) to add nutritional value

Conclusion

And there you were thinking that these cheeses were difficult to make. Not difficult, it just takes a tiny little bit of effort to put things together.

Once you start, you won’t stop!

If you find a novel use for labneh, let me know! I love this shit.