Delicious, wholesome homemade frozen yogurt recipe. Three basic ingredients and you can add your own fruit. No ice cream maker needed!
This frozen yogurt recipe requires no ice cream maker. It’s easy, delicious and wholesome. Homemade frozen yogurt is healthier than store-bought, and it tastes wonderfully fresh.
Can you just freeze yogurt to make frozen yogurt?
Not exactly. To achieve a good consistency, you either need an ice cream maker, or use the method I outline below in the recipe card and stir the yogurt often while it freezes. This helps prevent large ice crystals from forming.
Why bother with making homemade frozen yogurt?
Have you seen Pinkberry‘s list of ingredients? Their original frozen yogurt contains nonfat milk, sugar, nonfat yogurt, nonfat yogurt powder, fructose, dextrose, natural flavors, citric acid, guar gum, maltodextrin, mono- and diglycerides, and rice starch. 😳
Unlike commercial frozen yogurt, my homemade frozen yogurt contains no yucky additives, so don’t expect the “perfect” texture you get when you add thickeners, stabilizers, and emulsifiers.
But in this homemade frozen yogurt recipe, you can taste the tang of the yogurt and the sweetness of the honey. It’s simple, delicious, and best eaten on the day you make it.
What ingredients do you use in this recipe?
The basic recipe is simple: yogurt, honey, and vanilla extract. To that, you can add fruit – fresh or frozen, pureed or chunky. I like to completely puree the fruit in the food processor, then add the yogurt, honey, and vanilla.
But you can blend the yogurt and honey first, then add the fruit and process briefly, leaving fruit chunks in your yogurt.
The possibilities are endless, but the frozen yogurt flavors I make most often are mango, raspberry, vanilla, and chocolate. I’ll post each recipe separately over the next few weeks. Today, I’ll start with the most basic: vanilla frozen yogurt recipe.
Is this a healthy recipe?
I think it’s very healthy for a dessert. It’s made with a short list of wholesome ingredients. Yogurt is very healthy, and honey is arguably a better choice than white sugar (plus it’s so delicious!).
How to serve homemade frozen yogurt
It’s excellent all on its own. It also goes really well with grilled peaches. And I sometimes serve it topped with blueberry compote or strawberry compote.
Frozen Yogurt Recipe
INGREDIENTS
- 2 cups Greek yogurt, plain, full fat
- 1/4 cup honey*
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
INSTRUCTIONS
- Place the yogurt, honey and vanilla in your food processor’s bowl.
- Process to incorporate, stopping once to scrape the sides of the bowl, then process 1 more minute, until light and fluffy.
- Using a spatula, transfer the mixture into a square 9-inch pan. Cover with cling wrap, and freeze for 45 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the freezer, Use a spatula to stir the already-frozen edges into the still-soft center, then use a whisk to mix everything together until smooth.
- Cover again, and place in the freezer for 2 more hours, repeating the process of stirring the yogurt every 30 minutes.
- When the entire mixture is frozen, serve immediately as a soft-serve yogurt (use chilled bowls), or freeze 1-2 more hours for a firmer consistency that you can scoop out with an ice cream scoop.
- If you end up storing the frozen yogurt for longer than that (say, overnight or a couple of days – I doubt it will last longer), remove it from the freezer 20 minutes before serving, to allow it to soften.
NOTES
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