• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Good Cheap Eats
  • About
    • About Good Cheap Eats
    • Media
    • Privacy Policy
    • Disclosure
    • Contact Me
  • Members Only
    • Login
    • Club Homepage
    • Club Resource Library
    • Downloads
    • Live Club Events
  • Recipe Index
  • Blog
  • SHOP
    • Purchases
    • Cookbooks
    • Planner
    • The Good Cheap Eats Club
    • Meal Plans
    • Holiday Helps
menu icon
go to homepage
  • Memorial Day
  • Recipes
  • Shop
  • About
  • My Account
  • Members Only
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
  • subscribe
    search icon
    Homepage link
    • Memorial Day
    • Recipes
    • Shop
    • About
    • My Account
    • Members Only
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
  • ×

    Home » Lunches

    Plain Yogurt is a Good Cheap Eat

    Published: Sep 16, 2014 · Modified: Feb 4, 2021 by Jessica Fisher

    Facebook0Tweet0Pin0Print0
    As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. For more details, please see our disclosure policy.
    large carton of yogurt on counter this …

    Plain yogurt is a good cheap eat that you can enjoy plain as well as in cooking and baking. It’s a must-have in our kitchen.

    It wasn’t until we found ourselves buried in debt that I really gave plain yogurt a chance. Previously, I bought the more expensive sugared varieties in individual packaging.

    Once I started to drastically cut my grocery budget, I became a little more cut-throat in my yogurt buying: I only bought store brand on sale or a name brand on sale with a coupon.

    Now that I’m trying to clean up our family’s diet, I prefer the plain variety without all the added junk. 

    Buy Plain Yogurt

    As it turned out the store brand’s flavored varieties were pretty gross and they were filled with ingredients and fillers I didn’t want my family to eat. So, I started buying plain yogurt which had the great price, but without all the additives I wanted us to avoid.

    Yogurt as a main dish

    I doctor it up with fresh fruit or jam or even maple syrup or honey. My older children were slow to catch on at first, but the younger ones were totally on board from the start. In fact, they love it with maple syrup as does my husband. He makes it a regular lunch or afternoon snack.

    As for me, I love to make parfaits with berries and granola.

    jars of pancake mixes with funnel

    Yogurt in recipes

    I’ve also used plain yogurt as a substitute for sour cream in dressings and in baking. It’s a key ingredient in Mix and Match Muffins and Chocolate Banana Marble Cake as well as our favorite topping for fish tacos, Yogurt-Dill Dressing. My kids love the Yogurt Pancakes that are in the Good Cheap Eats cookbook. (affiliate link)

    Yogurt makes Fish Tacos into Happiness on a Plate. Plain yogurt is also a fantastic base for marinades like this Buttermilk-Yogurt Marinade or Tandoori Chicken.

    My target price is $0.50 per individual cup or $2-2.50 for a large carton of regular yogurt, $3-3.50 for Greek. Costco tends to have the best price on the latter.

    The full fat version from Mountain High is divine in parfaits, but I typically opt for the nonfat Fage for the extra boost of protein. I’ve also learned how to make yogurt myself!

    I don’t clip as many coupons as I once did, but I’m sure to stock up when I see sales and especially when I have coupons for our favorite brands, like Fage or Mountain High.

    Either way, plain yogurt is a healthy and economical ingredient. Most definitely a good cheap eat.

    Do you use plain yogurt in your cooking?

    This post was originally published on July 19, 2010. Pricing information has been updated.

    « Six-Layer Nachos that You Can Make & Freeze
    Creamy Coleslaw That Won’t Go Soggy »
    Facebook0Tweet0Pin0Print0

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Whitney

      September 25, 2014 at 1:51 pm

      Hi! You mention often that you have target prices for specific items. Do you have any great tips for remembering them or keeping them handy for price comparisons? Maybe I should make a little cheat sheet. What do you do?

      Reply
      • Jessica Fisher

        September 25, 2014 at 2:02 pm

        A lot of folks keep price books. I’ve even heard that there’s an app to help you track your prices. I just keep them in my head. It’s not so hard since I don’t buy a ton of different processed foods to keep track of, just a basic price for cheese, meat, milk, produce, etc.

        Reply
    2. Holly

      September 17, 2014 at 7:19 am

      I’ve done plain yogurt as a sour cream substitute for years, and as my daily yogurt for about a year now, sweetened with a bit of real maple syrup and added almonds. Still can’t convert the family, but if they eat yogurt daily, I’m okay with hunting down the better ones, at good prices, which sometimes is the big tub portioned out, sometimes the individual ones. It’s a process.

      Reply
      • K athy

        September 19, 2014 at 6:08 am

        I use Kristen’s recipe from her blog Frugal Girl and I love it! Thanks to the easy process I can have yogurt any time. I went out and bought a small styrofoam cooler just for that purpose. I make half vanilla and half plain.

        Reply
    3. Amber

      September 17, 2014 at 5:44 am

      Jessica, thank you for this post! I am just discovering the joys of plain yogurt! I have tried diffferent brands, and the for the first time time this week, I found Dannon All Natural Plain Yogurt at Walmart. I am loving it-it is full fat and has only one ingredient, which has been so hard to find. I paid $3 for 32 oz. This is the best price I have seen on any full sized plain yogurt.

      I agree with the other posts about fat. I no longer buy low fat/no fat, and it has taken me so long to get there!! We have been taught that animal fat is bad for so long, it is hard to believe otherwise. But full fat foods taste so much better, don’t need additives, and satisfy hunger better. Think about it-why would God create food for us that needs to be altered so much? What I do think we have to be wary of, is how our animals are raised, fed, and treated, because that effects the nutrition of our food that comes from them. But that is another post…

      My favorite way to eat yogurt is this. I make a big batch of cooked Quinoa each week and store it in the fridge. In the morning, I heat the quinoa for 30 secs in the microwave, drizzle raw honey (so much sweeter than refined honey IMO), and top with plain yogurt. I also sometimes add raw nuts on top. This is as quick as cereal and milk, which I no longer eat. Honestly, I have older kids, and they don’t eat this. But I love it! It is quick and satisfying.

      Reply
    4. Molly

      September 17, 2014 at 5:20 am

      We used to buy the flavored ones, and then we stopped and made our own for a long time, and then I bought a flavored one as a treat, and BLECH! I also bought a fat free plain one once, and it made my husband sad, so now we stick to the Trader Joe’s plain full fat kind, or we make our own with whole milk. In fact, I sent the hubby with yogurt for lunch today.

      Reply
    5. Brighid

      September 16, 2014 at 8:49 pm

      Stonyfield is our favorite store brand yogurt. Some family members like that best, some can deal with homemade. They have published a substitution chart too, making it easier on those of us who have yogurt around but many have not bought buttermilk, heavy cream, etc.

      Reply
    6. Melissa

      September 16, 2014 at 5:10 pm

      I also love the comments about full fat yogurt. Its easier to flavor because fat tastes good! Check out this method that sterilizes and incubates the milk directly in mason jars so there is virtually no clean up!
      http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2009/04/13/monday-mission-homemade-yogurt-the-easy-way/

      Reply
      • Jessica Fisher

        September 21, 2014 at 5:33 pm

        When I make it, I do it in mason jars, but I had never thought to sterilize it that way. Brilliant.

        Reply
    7. Melissa

      September 16, 2014 at 5:06 pm

      I make our yogurt as it is way cheaper and very little extra work. I strain it into Greek stylenand use it in dressings. I save and freeze the whey and make waffles, pancakes or crepes often times for the freezers for a quick breakfast.

      Reply
      • Jessica Fisher

        September 21, 2014 at 5:33 pm

        Milk is really expensive here, so I’m not sure it would be cheaper to make my yogurt. How much are you spending on milk?

        Reply
        • Melissa

          September 22, 2014 at 6:13 am

          I paid $3.49 for the last gallon I purchased.

        • Melissa

          September 22, 2014 at 6:15 am

          and I should add that it was regular whole milk, non organic.

    8. Demetria Elms

      May 04, 2012 at 8:45 am

      Great post! I always forget how versatile plain yogurt is until I come across a recipe that requires it. Mountain High Youghurt is my absolute favorite. I cannot stand the taste of sugary yogurts like Yoplait, Dannon, etc. since I’ve been using Mountain High for a few years. FYI, Mountain High has a great website full of easy recipes. Their Snickerdoodle Muffins are awesome 🙂 http://www.mountainhighyoghurt.com/recipes.html Yummy!

      Reply
    9. Patricia

      March 02, 2011 at 9:00 am

      Why fat won’t make you fatter?
      Here’s a resource:

      Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon, head of the Weston A. Price Foundation. It will convince you!

      Love your posts. Thanks for them, and the recipes!!

      Reply
    10. Kate

      July 25, 2010 at 12:27 pm

      I second the resources others have said about eating fat. We eat tons over here, and my husband’s lost 60 lbs. doing it!

      I find Dannon whole milk plain yogurt at Walmart for about $2/carton. And the only ingredient is “cultured Grade-A milk” which is great! No thickeners, stabilizers, or other crap. I put it in smoothies or feed it to my son plain or mixed with blueberries. Yummy!

      Reply
    11. [email protected]

      July 25, 2010 at 4:06 am

      I use whole milk to make my own yogurt, and none of us have gotten fat from it. Whole milk yogurt is WAY better than low fat yogurt. 🙂

      Reply
    12. Lori

      July 24, 2010 at 10:55 am

      One of my favorite cookbook authors (Joanna Lund) used fat-free yogurt for the following alternatives:
      3/4 cup plain yogurt + 1/3 cup nonfat dry milk is a sour cream substitute (makes 8 servings) (her recipe calls for fat free, but I have used both and it works)
      Knowing that, I use yogurt as a substitute in dip recipes for sour cream on a regular basis. If you have one of those dip mixes (like French Onion or Ranch) OR want to use salsa (about 1 cup of your favorite salsa) you have a great topping for baked potatoes or steamed brocolli. The salsa version is great for tacos and burritos. She recommended that if you cook with yogurt instead of sour cream, that for every 3/4 cup yogurt add 1 teaspoon cornstarch to stabilize it. I have not ever tried the cooking yogurt with cornstarch due to a corn allergy in the family, so I cannot vouch for how well that works. Neither have I been brave enough to make my own yogurt…yet! 🙂

      Reply
    13. Liz

      July 21, 2010 at 8:28 am

      Fat is essential to your diet because the vitamins and minerals we need are fat soluble, meaning the fat is what carries them to wherever they’re supposed to go. If you don’t have full fat in your dairy, you really aren’t getting the benefits of the calcium, which pretty much nullifies the reason to consume dairy.

      Also, when they remove the fat from dairy, they are removing vitamins. They have to replace the vitamins, so thus you see on the label Vitamin A & D. The problem is that they are synthetic. I guess I don’t like the idea of fake stuff in my food.

      I’m also of the mind that if fat were bad, our natural foods wouldn’t have been created that way in their original state.

      The foods that we really need to curb are refined sugars and flours. That’s what packs on the fat cells.

      Reply
    14. Emily

      July 20, 2010 at 5:05 am

      I’ve been making plain yogurt in my crockpot too. I use the recipe from 365crockpot. Like Meg said above, just google yogurt in your crockpot to find the directions. Totally easy and delicious!!!!

      Reply
    15. Erika

      July 19, 2010 at 7:17 pm

      I occasionally buy the big containers of vanilla yogurt, but have been too chicken to try plain. Thanks for the listing the practical uses of it!

      Reply
    16. Mar

      July 19, 2010 at 7:03 pm

      I don’t like the plain, but I love the vanilla flavored, as does my daughter. We add in fresh fruit – strawberries, blueberries, peaches, raspberries, whatever is in season.

      Reply
    « Older Comments

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




    Primary Sidebar

    jessica from good cheap eats

    Hi, I'm Jessica! I believe anyone can prepare delicious meals -- no matter their budget.

    More about me

    as seen on banner
    cooking for one
    cooking for many banner
    cooking to freeze banner

    Memorial Day BBQ Recipes

    • BBQ Party Meal Plan for Less than $25!
    • Spicy Chicken Marinade
    • Grilled Pork Tenderloin (78 cent/serving)
    • Loaded Potato Salad Recipe
    • Grilled Brats with Peppers and Onions (94 cents each)
    • The Easiest Grilled Pizza You Can Make

    Popular Posts

    • What to Make for Dinner When There’s “Nothing” to Eat
    • Starbucks Medicine Ball Tea – Cheaper at Home
    • How to Cook a Chuck Roast in the Slow Cooker
    • Roasting Garlic Cloves
    learn how to cook great homemade meals

    Footer

    back to top

    About

    • Privacy Policy
    • Disclaimer
    • Terms & Conditions

    Newsletter

    • Sign Up! for emails and updates

    Contact

    • Contact
    • About

    As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

    Copyright © 2021 Good Cheap Eats