Smoked Labneh

If you have a stovetop smoker, or a smoker donabe (ibushi gin), smoked labneh should be high on your list of things to make. Labneh is made simply by straining yogurt. The resulting consistency is rich, creamy and beautiful. Amazing on its own, you can also incorporate herbs, spices, or other ingredients. I know the number of you with a stovetop smoker is probably slim, but I love experimenting with mine, always trying to come up with more ways to use it, especially now that we have a gas range again. A long way of saying, if you want to play around with your smoker more, I see you. I use mine for all sorts of things - nuts, cheeses, tofu, vegetables, and on and on. So I'll try to post more as I'm using it.

Smoked Labneh: The Inspiration

Smoked labneh has been on my list of things to make for some time now. Late last year we made a few trips to San Francisco to make sure we were ready to make the move back from LA. I would walk through the Presidio to lunch at Dalida, in part, because I love their homemade pita situation - called Breaking Bread. The pita comes with a trio of spreads (hummus, muhammara, smoked yogurt), some pickles and olives. The smoked yogurt is a show-stopper - rich, creamy, luxe. The server wasn’t sure how it was prepared but I started thinking about how to approach it once I could get my smoker unpacked. I already make homemade labneh regularly, so it wouldn't be too much of a jump. Flash forward, and I’ve made smoked labneh a number of times in the weeks since! 

The Technique

I've been using a cold-smoke technique and it works nicely. It's where you keep the yogurt cold but flood the area around it with smoke. Every smoker is slightly different, so you might need to tweak your approach, but this will give you the general idea of how to think about it. You can see in my diagram below how things are layered in the smoker. Starting at the bottom: a piece of foil, wood chips, the grate, a bowl of ice and some water, the shallow container of labneh, the lid eventually goes on above that.

You can see the aluminum foil sitting on the bottom of the smoker topped with wood chips. The foil makes for easy cleanup.

Below, a stainless steel bowl of ice and some water sits on top of a grate, which keeps the bowl from having direct contact with heat or the wood chips. The labneh sits in the ice, keeping the yogurt cool through the smoking process.

Alternate approach: There's also a method for smoking Labneh in the NOPI cookbook, but I haven't attempted it yet. The labneh is formed into a puck shape and placed on a piece of parchment paper inside the smoker - no ice. They also use different aromatics for smoking (oolong tea, caraway seeds, pink peppercorn, etc). I suspect the biggest difference would be texturally, with the parchment version losing more moisture and possibly taking on more flavor because more surface area is exposed? Excited to take this version for a spin as well.

Video: How To Make Smoked Labneh

How Long Should I Smoke the Labneh?

Every smoker has its own quirks and personalities. My advice here is to take good notes. You want a nice, round, balance of smoky notes. Aim for the sweet spot between too subtle and too strong acrid (yikes). Every time I use the smoker I make note of: what I’m smoking, what type of wood chips / herbs, etc., and how long. Then note how I would increase or decrease the time in the future. Good notes are key to getting a good working relationship with your smoker. Twenty minutes seems to be the sweet spot here for the labneh using applewood chips. A similar timeframe worked well for this smoked chocolate mousse.

What if I don’t Have a Stovetop Smoker?

Here's what my smoker looks like, I loooove it (not sponsored). If I didn’t have my Ibushi Gin (donabe smoker) another way to get smoky flavor into the labneh might be to use a smoked salt. I’d grind it finely with a mortar and pestle and go from there. I’ve never really liked liquid smoke, so that wouldn’t be my move, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t experiment a bit as yet another approach. There could very well be better liquid smokes on the market compared to the last time I played around with it.

Smoked Labneh: Serving Ideas

• Drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with red gomashio (pictured above), along with candied nuts with rose water, seeded flatbread, and assorted cookies.
• In place of the poblano yogurt in this mushroom tartine.
• In place of the ricotta on this roasted mushroom sandwich.
• In place of the green chile yogurt in this sourdough galette.
• Rolled into 1-inch balls, rolled in spices, herbs, and/or seeds, and kept, refrigerated, in a jar topped off with olive oil.

More Yogurt Recipes

• Homemade Labneh
• Frozen Yogurt
• Pomegranate Yogurt Bowl
• Mast-o-Khiar Yogurt
• Fresh Mint Chip Frozen Yogurt

More Ways to Use Stovetop Smoker

• Smoked Chocolate Mousse

101 Cookbooks Membership

Premium Ad-Free membership includes:
-Ad-free content
-Print-friendly recipes
-Spice / Herb / Flower / Zest recipe collection PDF
-Weeknight Express recipe collection PDF
-Surprise bonuses throughout the year

Sign up here!