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.
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.
Whitney
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?
Jessica Fisher
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.
Holly
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.
K athy
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.
Amber
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.
Molly
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.
Brighid
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.
Melissa
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/
Jessica Fisher
When I make it, I do it in mason jars, but I had never thought to sterilize it that way. Brilliant.
Melissa
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.
Jessica Fisher
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?
Melissa
I paid $3.49 for the last gallon I purchased.
Melissa
and I should add that it was regular whole milk, non organic.
Demetria Elms
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!
Patricia
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!!
Kate
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!
Kristen@TheFrugalGirl
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. 🙂
Lori
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! 🙂
Liz
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.
Emily
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!!!!
Erika
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!
Mar
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.