One vegan’s search for the perfect non-dairy yogurt

As week 1 of vegan-ism comes to a close, I have to admit it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong, I’d still LOVE a piece of cheese, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I tried a few new recipes (see one below), lost 4 pounds, and woke up this morning without a headache. That hasn’t happened in at least 15 years.

In addition to cheese, yogurt is/was another huge staple in my diet. I probably ate yogurt for breakfast or a snack at least 4x a week. Obviously yogurt isn’t vegan so I needed/wanted to find a non-dairy option to serve as a good alternative. Over the course of the week, I tried four different types.

1. So Delicious Greek Style Coconut Milk – I prefer greek yogurt, because its thicker and generally has more protein. This “Greek Style” non-dairy yogurt had neither of those things. It only had 2g of protein as compared to 12g in Chobani, and it’s consistency mimicked a yogurt like Yoplait. It also claimed to be Strawberry flavor, but all I could taste was coconut. I like coconut, but I wanted my strawberry yogurt to taste more like…a strawberry yogurt!

2. Stonyfield O’Soy – One thing I hate about a lot of yogurt is that they are pre-blended. I’m a plain or fruit on the bottom kinda girl, so this one seemed more up my alley. It also had more protein (7g) that many of the other brands. It was thicker than the previous yogurt, but still not thick enough. It also had a whopping 27g of sugar and tastes like it! It was so overwhelmingly sweet I couldn’t even eat it. I couldn’t even tell you what it tasted like, because all I tasted was sugar.

3. So Delicious Cultured Almond Milk – I decided to give So Delicious another shot this time with their Almond Milk variety. This was another pre-blended yogurt with only 2g of protein. Again I couldn’t really taste strawberry,the flavoring seemed somewhat fake. It had the same consistency as the coconut kind, but was still missing the tangy flavor of yogurt. I’d probably eat this one again in a pinch, but I was unimpressed.

4. Almond Dream Low Fat Almond Yogurt – I don’t generally like to buy low-fat or fat-free things because they tend to have tons more sugar, but I REALLY wanted to find an edible non-dairy yogurt. This brand could only be described as gelatinous and artificial. You know how cranberry sauce comes out of the can with the ridges still intact, it was like that. It literally plopped into my bowl still in the form of the container. I took a small taste and nothing about it tasted like yogurt, strawberries or anything real.

So I suppose it’s back to the drawing board. Maybe I’ll have to try and make my own, with a little help from pinterest, and see what happens.

Despite having so many issues with finding an edible yogurt, I did find a lot of new recipes! One of my faves was this Lentil and Quinoa stew from the Herbal Academy of New England. It was delicious, hearty, and filled with protein and fiber. It’s been damn right frigid up here in the Northeast, and this was the perfect meal for those cold, sub-zero nights.