In this work we extend well-known techniques for solving the Poincar\'e-Lyapunov nondegenerate analytic center problem in the plane to the 3-dimensional center problem at the zero-Hopf singularity. Thus we characterize the existence of a neighborhood of the singularity completely foliated by periodic orbits (including continua of equilibria) via an analytic Poincar\'e return map. The vanishing of the first terms in a Taylor expansion of the associated displacement map provides us with the necessary 3-dimensional center conditions in the parameter space of the family whereas the sufficiency is obtained through symmetry-integrability methods. Finally we use the proposed method to classify the 3-dimensional centers of some quadratic polynomial differential families possessing a zero-Hopf singularity.