Yogurt Is The Sourdough Starter Substitute You Need For Tangy Bread (2024)

FAQs

Yogurt Is The Sourdough Starter Substitute You Need For Tangy Bread? ›

While this swap doesn't result in true sourdough bread since yogurt lacks wild yeast and bacteria cultures, it provides a comparable tangy flavor and some leavening action. To make this swap, choose plain yogurt with live cultures, which are key to infusing your bread with tanginess.

To substitute yogurt for sourdough starter, choose plain yogurt with live active cultures. These cultures are the key to infusing your bread with tanginess. Mix the yogurt (most recipes call for 1/3 or 1/2 cup) with your flour, water, and other bread ingredients, just as you would with a traditional bread recipe.

The signature sourdough flavor comes from a combination of lactic and acetic acids, created as the dough rises and ferments. Refrigerating the dough encourages the production of more acetic acid, which is the tangier of the two. Thus, this bread with its refrigerated starter has the ideal balance of sour flavor.

But what if you're craving that distinctive tang and don't have a sourdough starter on hand? Enter yogurt — the unexpected substitute that can give your bread that familiar zing while creating a unique twist on the classic.

The dough goes through a fermentation cycle until it is ready to rise and bake. A sourdough starter is made up of wild yeast and bacteria working together. The bacteria is where the sour flavor is coming from!

What does yogurt do for bread? The slight acidity of yogurt helps to break down and relax the gluten in bread flour. In turn, this results in a softer & fluffier white bread. You can see similar results in soft white breads made with other slightly acidic ingredients such as buttermilk.

A yogurt starter can be from any jar of store bought yogurt that says “active cultures” on the carton. Make sure your yogurt is plain (no sweeteners) and full fat for the best results (though I've heard low fat and even Greek yogurt will work fine as a starter as long as it has active cultures).

Small Amounts of Sourdough Starter - using less sourdough starter in your dough produces a more sour flavor because it takes much longer for the dough to rise, giving the bacteria more time to produce the natural acids that give sourdough its distinct flavor.

Water temperature: The higher the temperature of fully kneaded dough, the more likely your resulting bread will be more (rather than less) sour. The principal way bakers can influence the temperature of fully kneaded dough is through the temperature of the water used to mix the dough.

What if you don't have a sourdough starter? ›

If no one around you has any, all you need to make your own is time and patience — and also flour and water. But here's a reliable shortcut: You can also create a sourdough starter with the help of a bit of store-bought yeast.

To replace the baker's yeast that most breads need to rise, sourdough requires some starter – a self-sustaining fermentation of flour, water, wild yeasts and bacteria that produce lactic and acetic acids.

If you are new to sourdough baking or don't have the time or inclination to make your own starter, a bought starter may be a good option. However, if you enjoy the process of creating your own starter and want more control over the fermentation process, making your own starter may be the way to go.

Typical signs of food spoilage and mold include pink, orange, or green colors, white fuzzy spots, or sometimes areas that are darker with white areas on top. If you see any of these signs, I would recommend throwing your starter away and creating a new one.

Method 1: High Feeding Ratio

Sometimes you can remediate a weak, acidic starter with a single high feeding ratio. The most common “high feeding ratios” are 1:5:5 and 1:10:10. These ratios help knock down the acidity of your starter with one large feeding.

Over the past decade-plus of baking, I've tested all manner of flour from whole grain wheat to spelt to einkorn, and while they all do work, my preferred flour to use when creating a sourdough starter is whole grain rye flour and white flour (this can be all-purpose or high-protein bread flour).

Other starter cultures are heirloom yogurt starter or reusable, meaning that you can make yogurt over and over again by using a bit of yogurt from your previous batch as a starter.

Direct-set yogurt starters are one-time-use cultures. It is possible to use some yogurt made with a direct-set starter to make a new batch of yogurt, but after a few batches, the culture will weaken and a new dose of direct-set starter is needed.

In that matters, plain yoghurt addition as a starter process on sourdough fermentation might be an alternative ingredient for new sourdough-bakery applications.

What if I do not have enough sourdough starter for my recipe? If you need more starter than you currently have, just keep building it up by not removing any starter prior to feeding and feed the starter an equal 1:1:1 ratio until you have the amount you need. It builds quite quickly.