Plain yogurt is loaded with probiotics that support your gut health, and it’s a lower calorie, lower fat, higher-calcium alternative to sour cream. While cooking yogurt removes the gut benefits (the helpful bacteria can’t survive the heat), plain yogurt still can be a nutritious, helpful ingredient in baked goods, too.
Storage
Yogurt can be stored anywhere in your fridge. Once you open it, it will last for one to two weeks. Take care to use a clean, dry spoon whenever you scoop some out, since a wet or dirty spoon will speed up spoiling.
Basic Prep Ideas
Here are a few other ways to use plain yogurt besides the two sauces in your recipe packet:
Use it as a 1:1 substitute for sour cream. The taste is very similar, and the consistency is just a little thinner. Greek yogurt has a more similar consistency, but some people don’t love Greek yogurt, so I started you off with the regular stuff. You can just slap a dollop of this on top of any bean/lentil dish, in tacos, and anywhere else you would use sour cream.
Make a tzatziki like the one in our Mediterranean bowls from class! Click here for a pretty solid recipe. If you don’t have a cucumber, don’t worry! This sauce is still tangy and delicious without it. Many tzatziki recipes (like this one) call for Greek yogurt. I make it with regular yogurt all the time and don’t mind that the sauce is a tiny bit thinner. Just use whatever you have in your fridge.
Make your own fruit or vanilla yogurt! To make your own vanilla yogurt, add a little honey or sugar and a few drops of vanilla. If you want fruit yogurt, skip the vanilla and chop up some fruit and throw it in. Taste as you go and adjust the sweetness to your liking. The beauty of this is that you get to eliminate the modified food starch and “natural flavors” (which doesn’t actually mean natural) that make flavored yogurt a more processed food. I really REALLY love plain yogurt with fresh cherries (cut in half, pits removed) and a light drizzle of honey. The sourness of the plain yogurt mixes with the sweet cherries really beautifully, and it has so much less sugar than the stuff you buy in the store.
Plain yogurt is yummy in a bowl with granola and nuts on top and a drizzle of honey. It can take time to get used to the taste of yogurt served plain like this, but that sour flavor mixed with honey is so much fun.
Feel free to try full-fat plain yogurt or Greek yogurt as well! Full-fat yogurt still has MUCH less dairy fat (including saturated fat) than sour cream, and much more calcium.