Yogurt Cheese

This does not sound terribly appetizing. Granted if you adorn any word with 'cheese' it can kinda make it sound disgusting. However, yogurt cheese is just yogurt that has been drained over night. I place a large container of plain yogurt in a sieve lined with cheese cloth (or a paper towel can work as well) over a bowl, and I let it set overnight in the refrigerator. What you have is incredibly thick, almost cream-cheese-thick, yogurt and the whey that's been drained off.



I've been told you can consume whey (in about a 1 tbsp per glass of water ratio) to help with digestion. I think it used to be a kind of panacea for stomach ailments. Either way, the product I'm interested in is the thick yogurt cheese left over. At 8 grams of fat per 1 cup, yogurt definitely beats cream cheese and condiments like mayonnaise, but the consistency is typically too thin.

I used this yogurt cheese to create two spreads that both worked great on bagels as a healthier alternative to cream cheese. For the first spread I combined equal parts yogurt cheese and peanut butter. This provided a subtle tanginess and a profound creaminess to usually heavy peanut butter.

The second spread I tried consisted of a little chopped onion, a crushed clove of garlic, a little thyme I had laying around, and some salt and pepper. Here I was going for a kind of garlic and herb cream cheese substitute. Because of the inherent lightness of the yogurt, the extra flavors were definitely profound. I loved it, but I can see how it might be too garlicky or too onion-y for some people.



I ended up using the remaining yogurt cheese as a way to lighten up some tuna salad (combined with a little mayo, salt and pepper, and red wine vinegar) and to add some creaminess to an otherwise heavy broccoli casserole (I have my mom to thank for that suggestion). I definitely want to experiment more with this next year...

*I wish I had bagels, but toast works as well