How to Make Healthy Frozen Yogurt without Ice Cream Maker

More and more people go to their favorite frozen yogurt shop, order a large cup, and think they have made a healthy choice. It’s yogurt, so it's healthy, right? Not quite! Health-wise, store-bought frozen yogurt is actually closer to low-fat ice cream than to regular yogurt. Check out the facts, listed after the recipe.

However, healthy frozen yogurt is easy to make and all it takes is three ingredients – yogurt, fruit and honey. This recipe uses strained low fat yogurt to obtain thicker and creamier texture. The yogurt is sweetened with honey instead of sugar, because the honey is not only natural but also nutritive sweetener with antioxidant and antimicrobial properties.

Although this frozen yogurt is made without an ice cream maker, its texture is not icy. So, if you want to make delicious and healthy frozen yogurt at home without a machine, follow these easy steps.

500 g (17 oz) low fat plain yogurt

1 cup strawberries, thawed from frozen (without the juice)

4 tablespoons honey (You can use less, depending on the sweetness of the fruit)

Nuts or fresh strawberries for topping

1. Place a large strainer (or colander) over a vessel.
2. Line the strainer with four layers of cheesecloth.
3. Put the yogurt in the cheesecloth lined strainer. Tie off the top of the cloth, just above the mass of yogurt, with a string (preferably with red bow on it).
4. Place the vessel with the strainer in the refrigerator and allow the yogurt to drain for 2-3 hours.
5. After the whey has been strained out, remove the string and put the strained yogurt in a bowl using a spatula or spoon. The texture should be similar to the texture of cream cheese.
6. In a food processor or blender, puree the strawberries. (If you have a good food processor, you can blend all the ingredients together.)
7. Add the pureed strawberries and honey to the yogurt and whisk until smooth.
8. Put the mixture in a plastic container and freeze for about 40 min.
9. Remove the container from the freezer and stir the mixture vigorously with a spoon or whisk. Try to break up any frozen sections. Return to freezer.
10. Repeat the previous step three times in 30 min. intervals. This will result in creamy frozen yogurt without an ice cream maker!
11. Serve with nuts or fresh fruit.

The recipe makes 4 moderate servings.

In general, frozen yogurt contains less fat and calories than regular ice cream, but to compensate for the loss of fats, the yogurt is loaded with sugar. As it was mentioned in the beginning, frozen yogurt is similar to low-fat ice cream. Take as an example Pinkberry’s Coconut Frozen Yogurt and Skinny Cow’s Low Fat Ice Cream.

One serving of the frozen yogurt (100g) has 28 g of sugar. The same amount of the ice cream contains 24 g of sugar. Both products are similar in terms of protein (4 g per serving), but this amount is relatively low compared to a plain fat-free yogurt. Products such as Oikos Greek Yogurt contain 10 g of protein per 100 g serving. The calcium, which is one of the nutrients yogurt is an excellent source of, is also relatively low in the frozen version (15%), compared to the plain yogurt (25%). The advantages of the frozen yogurt are: contains less fat (0.5 g) than the ice cream (3 g); and has 70 calories less per serving. Of course, all these values vary from brand to brand, but do you still think frozen yogurt is much healthier than ice cream?

Another important thing is that not all products labeled as "frozen yogurt" contain the “good” bacteria that promote digestive health, or the so called “Live and Active Cultures”. These are the living organisms Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus, which convert pasteurized milk to yogurt during fermentation. Some brands heat-treat the yogurt, which kills the live and active cultures. Brands that carry the NYA Live & Active Cultures seal are the ones that for sure contain significant amount of the bacteria.

Nonfat frozen yogurts also use thickeners like guar gum and variety of additives and chemicals to make up for the creamy texture that high fat ingredients provide. This means that some varieties of frozen yogurt are more processed than ice cream and if you are trying to eat healthy, you want to keep your food as minimally processed as possible.

Bottom Line: If you want to get all the health benefits of yogurt, make your own frozen treat.

A common misunderstanding is that freezing kills the “good” bacteria in the yogurt. Although bacteria don’t multiply in the freezer, they can survive the freezing process by going into ‘hibernation’ [1] and ‘come back to life’ again as the food begins to thaw [2]. For example, Salmonella (a type of bacteria) have been known to survive for 7 years at –23°C in ice cream [3].

References:

1. Lund, B. M. (2000). Freezing. In: BM Lund, TC Baird Parker, GW Gould (Eds.), The Microbiological Safety and Quality of Food. Vol 1. Aspen Publishers, Gaithersburg, MD; 122-145.
2. Adams, M.R., Moss, M.O. (2000). Food Microbiology. The Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, 2nd edition.
3. Bell, C., & Kyriakides, A. 2002. Salmonella, p. 307-331. In C. Blackburn, P. McClure, Foodborne pathogens, hazards, risk analysis and control. CRC Press LLC.