Barb Hodgens
Barb Hodgens

Barb Hodgens loves to cook with alternative, healthy whole food ingredients, with a focus on gut health. Barb has overcome her own gut health issues through healthy eating. Share your ideas, comments and photos at the end of this post :)

homemade skyr

It’s super easy and fun to make at home!

Skyr is a delicious, thick, rich and tangy cultured dairy product from Iceland. The texture and taste resemble thick yogurt but, in Iceland it’s regarded as a type of fresh curd cheese that is in the same culinary family as Italian ricotta, German quark, or Middle Eastern labneh.

The process of making skyr, (pronounced skeer) is very much like our homemade Greek yogurt, except the method calls for rennet, a cheese making ingredient be added at the same time as the starter culture. Like all of the above mentioned soft fresh cheeses, skyr is also filtered through a cloth to remove the liquid whey. The consistency of the final product is dependent on how long the cheese is left to strain. We left ours drain for only 2 hours, for a thicker finish leave your skyr hanging for up to 6 hours.

homemade skyr

Skyr is most commonly made with skim or low-fat milk and is revered for being full of protein but very low in fat. Historically however, traditional skyr would have been made with whole milk (and most probably raw) as reduced fat milk is a recent industrialised dairy product.  

With the addition of rennet, the incubation process is not as exacting or temperature sensitive as homemade yogurt. People find nifty ways to keep their skyr curds warm for hours on end, but the Pure Plus yogurt maker guarantees the process, without the worry, especially in cool weather.

Just like yogurt, you can enjoy skyr both sweet and savoury. One famous way to enjoy skyr is to serve it as a simple dessert with fresh cream, brown sugar and fresh berries, if they’re in season. It’s important not to stir this dessert but rather, experience the unique sensation of the sweet & cream against the tartness.

homemade skyr

homemade skyr

homemade skyr

homemade skyr

homemade skyr

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How to make Skyr