Labneh is one of the simplest cheeses you can make at home – using just two ingredients. If you’ve not tried your hand at cheesemaking before, we can recommend labneh as a good place to start. The key to delicious tasting labneh, like all cooking, is to ensure you use quality ingredients.
What is Labneh anyway?
Middle Eastern in origin, labneh is quite similar in flavour and texture to everyday store-bought cream cheese – but so much better! Put simply, labneh is a velvety yoghurt-based spreadable cheese. It has a slightly sour note that is delicious served as part of a mezze platter.
How can I make Labneh?
Labneh is made by removing excess whey from salted yoghurt.
Below is a step-by-step guide on how to make our Oh So Simple Labneh Recipe at home using two ingredients – yoghurt and salt.
For the yoghurt, we implore you to choose a top-quality yoghurt! Cow, sheep or goat yoghurts will all work. For our taste, you can’t go past Barambah Organics All Natural Yoghurt. It’s especially creamy due to the yoghurt being unhomogenised. Whatever you choose, avoid using a yoghurt with thickeners added! Make sure your yoghurt is all natural and full fat.
We recommend using a 1kg tub of yogurt for this Labneh recipe as 500g just won’t yield enough for everyone.
For the salt, go for quality here too. We always have Murray River Salt in the pantry which works a treat.
For our Oh So Simple Labneh Recipe you will also need a piece of muslin cloth that is large enough to double over and use to hang the yoghurt.
How do I serve Labneh?
Remove your Labneh from the fridge and give it one final gentle squeeze to release any remaining liquid. Untie the sack to reveal your delicious labneh cheese.
There are two ways to serve labneh. To save it for later I recommend using clean hands to mould the labneh into bite sized balls. Gently layer the balls in a jar with olive oil and your favourite fresh herbs such as thyme or mint, some lemon rind, black peppercorns, chilli – use your imagination!
If you are going to serve your Oh So Simple Labneh Recipe immediately, it is great to serve as a dip. Spoon your labneh into a flat serving dish and drizzle with olive oil and traditional Middle Eastern flavours like za’atar, sumac and dried mint. Serve your labneh as part of a mezze platter finished with Byron Bay Crackers salt & seed crackers, crunchy crudites and maybe some warm flatbread.
You might even divide your labneh in half and flavour each differently!
We are currently addicted to LGM Crispy Chilli Oil. We add it to everything! So recently we topped our labneh with a few generous spoons of chilli oil served with our Byron Bay Crackers paprika & chilli crackers. We can highly recommend this labneh with an Asian twist!
We hope you enjoy our Oh So Simple Labneh Recipe!
Oh So Simple Labneh Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 kg Full fat yoghurt good quality
- 1.5 teaspoons Salt flakes
Instructions
- In a mixing bowl, combine the yoghurt and salt.
- Take a colander and line it with your doubled-over muslin cloth. Gently spoon the yoghurt mix into the muslin lined strainer. Once all the yoghurt is in the muslin, carefully lift the corners and edges together and tie them with string or a rubber band to form a sack
- Pop the colander inside a deep bowl in the fridge for 48 hours to allow the whey to strain.
- Remove your Labneh from the fridge and give it one final gentle squeeze to release any remaining liquid. Untie the sack to reveal your delicious labneh cheese.