Today, I tried a One-Ingredient Vegan Yogurt recipe! Check out the video below to see me make this and scroll down if you want to read more about it~
For today’s ‘Cook With Me’ video, I decided to create something that just randomly popped up on my YouTube recommendations list — a One-Ingredient Vegan Yogurt recipe I found from this YouTube channel! And the best part is — that ONE ingredient is chickpeas!
If you don’t know it yet, chickpeas are high in protein, and it’s just the perfect recipe to try out because first, I love high-protein yogurt and second, who doesn’t want to try a “one-ingredient” recipe?! (my cheap vegan alter-ego is already giddy with excitement LOL)
Original recipe is in the video description, but make sure to watch my Cook with Me video above and don’t forget to scroll down for my written thoughts! 😊
My One-Ingredient Yogurt Recipe Adventure
Obviously, I don’t need to create an ingredients list for this, so I’ll just walk you through my little yogurt-making adventure. Exciting, isn’t it? 😛
Step One: Soak chickpeas
So for the first step is to soak some chickpeas in 4 cups of water overnight, or for at least 12 hours. After soaking, save some of the water in a separate jar or a glass and set aside. Drain chickpeas to prepare them for the next step.
Step Two: Blend chickpeas
Throw the chickpeas into a blender along with a cup of water and blend until smooth. Surprisingly, the chickpeas blended very easily, probably because we let it take its time soaking in the water the night before, so make sure to not skip on the soaking.
Once smooth, add a little more water and blend again. Mix in the remaining water (no need to blend again) and transfer into a bowl.
Step Three: Drain the chickpea-water mixture
Using a colander (or whatever you think would work), drain the chickpea-water mixture into a separate bowl. The watery part is what we’re going to be using to make the yogurt.
So now that you got most of the water out from draining in the colander, place the chickpeas in a cheesecloth and squeeze out the remaining water.
Step Five: Boil the chickpea milk
Pour the chickpea milk in a pot and heat it up. Stir continuously and the mixture should thicken up as it heats up. Once it has heated enough, turn off the heat but make sure to keep stirring so it remains nice and smooth. You’re supposed to keep doing this until the mixture cools down a little bit to the point where you can touch it without burning your finger. I ended up taking this outside to help cool it down faster.
Step Six: Fermentation
Once it has cooled down, transfer it into a container (avoid any metal containers). Pour in a little bit of the chickpea water you saved from earlier (around 2 tbsp) and mix it well. Cover the container and let it sit overnight at room temperature.
The Next Day: What’s the Verdict?
So now that fermentation is pretty much done, the next step is to do a little taste test and find out if this One-Ingredient Vegan Yogurt is worth all the waiting time!
For the smell, it does have that slightly tangy, yogurt-y smell (I’m sure you know what I mean). The consistency is also thick, very custard-y, kind of like pudding.
And now, finally, for the taste… *drumroll please*
It definitely has that slight, yogurt-y fermented taste, but it’s a little weird. To put it mildly, it even tastes a little bit like tofu, but the texture is a bit grainy. It is not disgusting, but I would definitely not eat this on its own. I’m probably going to sweeten it up a bit and put other things in it like vegan chocolate protein powder.
I think it could be used in smoothies to provide a nice and creamy consistency (and some additional protein!) and I’ve also tried it in a savoury recipe (I made a slightly altered version of my Vegan Creamy Kimchi Udon, using this yogurt) which I think worked well.
I’m going to experiment a little more with how to flavour this yogurt to make it taste better. On it’s own, I’m still not a fan but I do think that it could be a good base for many things… I’m still experimenting!
