Labneh Recipe From the Mountains of Lebanon

I grew up on homemade yogurt and labneh. Pretty much every Lebanese kid does. And after so many years eating labneh, I never tried to make it myself. I asked my father how to make our family homemade labneh recipe. It’s simple and doesn’t need any fancy equipment. He told me this is how my Tayta Lily (my Lebanese grandmother) used to make it.

All you need to make labneh is a starter plain yogurt and whole milk. I use a full-fat plain yogurt as my starter yogurt.

The Family Labneh Recipe

Put the milk in a large pot. Set heat to high until the milk just starts to boil. Immediately remove from heat.

This is important! You have to watch the milk, otherwise, you will run the risk of the milk boiling over and making a mess.

Let milk cool down to a temperature that you can stick you finger in for 10 seconds.

Yes, I’m not joking. This is the step in the recipe. You see back in the day, they didn’t have fancy kitchen gadgets to read temperatures. They had to use their fingers!

If the milk is too hot, then come back until you can keep your finger in the milk for 10 full seconds.

Add the starter yogurt to the milk. The ratio is 1 cup of yogurt to 1 gallon of milk.

Cover the pot and wrap with a towel. Let yogurt sit at room temperature for a full 24 hours.

Once the yogurt is made, now we need to strain out the excess water for around 8 to 10 hours to make the lebneh recipe.

There are two methods I tried to strain the yogurt:

1. Paper towels
2. Cotton cloth fabric

The paper towels easily broke after the full 24 hours. I prefer the cotton cloth. Both paper towels and cotton cloth were effective in removing the excess liquid (which is whey).

The labneh is ready once it sort of sticks together. Labneh has more moisture than cream cheese, yet less moisture than sour cream. It’s in a camp of its own.

Put labneh in a bowl that can stored in the fridge. I typically eat the labneh within 2 weeks.

How to Eat Labneh

I normally eat my labneh recipe with zaatar, olive oil, and salt sprinkled on the top as a dip. My preference for dipping is fried pita chips or regular pita bread.

My childhood way of eating labneh was as a sandwich. Now, over the years I’ve made some amazing labneh sandwiches. The one below is the best.

Labneh Pita Bread Sandwich

Split a large pita bread. Spread the labneh in a thin layer all over the top of the pita bread. Sprinkle zaatar and salt. Drizzle some olive oil. Add fresh mint leaves, Lebanese olives, and Persian cucumbers. If you have really delicious tomatoes, add those too in thin slivers. Enjoy!

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