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Homemade Frozen Greek Yogurt

Homemade Frozen Greek Yogurt

Frozen yogurt has a lot of fans, and recently, ice cream manufactures have started to take notice of this fact. They’re churning out higher quality frozen yogurts that highlight the natural tang of the yogurt alongside other flavors in the dessert. Greek-style yogurt, which is very popular in general, is now also becoming a popular base for frozen yogurts because of its flavor and consistency, and you’ll now see many store-bought frozen yogurts advertising that they use greek yogurts on their packaging. This Homemade Frozen Greek Yogurt is a frozen yogurt recipe that you can make at home easily using greek-style yogurt as a base.

I’ve made frozen yogurt before many times at home, using both regular yogurt or greek-style yogurt. Greek style yogurt creates a richer tasting frozen yogurt because it is so much thicker than its conventional counterpart, and it is definitely my favorite type of yogurt to use when making frozen yogurt. It also typically has a stronger yogurt tang to it, which makes the finished frozen treat a little more refreshing tasting. To make the frozen yogurt, I first make an italian meringue. This type of meringue is a cooked meringue, where boiling sugar is streamed into beaten egg whites. The meringue gives a wonderfully light texture to the yogurt (the only ingredients are really the meringue and the yogurt) and you don’t need to worry about using uncooked egg whites in your dessert.

This basic frozen greek yogurt is vanilla flavored. Vanilla is a classic flavor that you can’t go wrong with. You can use a little vanilla extract for flavoring, you can scrape a vanilla bean into your mixture or you can even simply use vanilla sugar for a hint of vanilla. Vanilla also makes a great base for most other flavors and it would be easy to put a twist on this by stirring in some citrus zest, fresh berries, chocolate chips or even chunks of cake or brownies.

You can use nonfat or full fat greek yogurt for this recipe (or a combination of the two) and get good results both ways. The most important thing is to pick a yogurt that you like the flavor of, because it will come through in the finished frozen yogurt (I use Fage). You’ll get the best results with this recipe if you have an ice cream maker of some kind to churn your frozen yogurt base. The finished product will be light and smooth after churning. It can be frozen without churning, but the consistency will be more like a frozen mousse than an ice cream.

Homemade Frozen Greek Yogurt
1/4 cup water
2/3 cup sugar
2 large egg whites, room temperature
3 1/2 cups (500g) plain Greek-style yogurt, cold (full or nonfat)
2 tsp vanilla extract

In a small saucepan, combine water and sugar. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. When sugar comes to a full boil, continue to boil for about 1 1/2 minutes.
While the sugar boils, beat egg whites to soft peaks in a large, clean bowl. When the sugar is ready, continue beating the eggs at a low speed and very slowly stream in the hot sugar. When all the sugar has been incorporated, turn up mixer to high and beat until meringue is glossy and has cooled down to almost room temperature.
Fold cold yogurt and vanilla into the meringue.
Pour yogurt mixture into ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer directions.

Serves 4-6.

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14 Comments
  • katie
    July 9, 2012

    This looks wonderful. I love frozen yoghurt but whenever I make my own it always freezes too hard. Mixing it with meringue sounds a brilliant idea – thanks!

  • Erin
    July 10, 2012

    I love this. I have been interested in making this

  • Jill D.
    July 10, 2012

    This sounds like a great alternative to making homemade ice cream. I’ve boughten the frozen greek yogurt from the store, but this looks way more affordable! Thanks!

  • Geri
    July 10, 2012

    Nicole~Is it best to use full fat yogurt, or can light or fat free be substituted? Thanx Geri

  • Nicole
    July 10, 2012

    Geri – Good question! You can use nonfat or full fat yogurt for this recipe and both will give you great results. I tend to use nonfat, but have used both.

  • Thomas
    July 29, 2012

    Hey Nicole, is it possible to do this without a blender and ice cream machine? I have neither.

  • Monique
    November 1, 2012

    Thomas hand beat the eggs whites to soft peaks then making the sugar egg white mixture glossy is a LOT of hard work! It really is best to use a stand or hand mixer for this.

    I place the mixture in a 9×13 inch pan, cover with plastic wrap, freeze hard overnight. In the morning I mix it in the food processor until creamy then re-freeze in a Tupperware container or eat right away. Frozen yogurt for breakfast anyone??

  • Ken
    January 1, 2013

    Tried it it took me less than 15minutes of preparation and turned out really good!
    I’m definitly trading my old frozen yogurt recipe for this one!
    The result is creamy and has a nice tang to it! Next time i’ll try it with lemon zest and juice or maybe strawberry puree!!

  • Jackie
    June 6, 2013

    I make my own Greek yogurt, now I know what to do with some of it. Thank you for sharing this.

  • Bert
    July 1, 2014

    low-carb here. If the hot sugar really needed for this recipe to work?

  • Nicole
    July 2, 2014

    Bert – Yes, the sugar is used to cook the raw egg whites and to sweeten the yogurt. Plain yogurt is going to be quite icy when frozen on its own, and the combination of the sugar and egg whites is what lightens it up and gives it a creamy texture. You can reduce the sugar slightly – down to 1/3 of a cup – for a tarter frozen yogurt (that can be sweetened up with fruit, if desired) for a less sugary version that is still going to have a nice texture.

  • Melanie
    December 6, 2014

    Can you use honey or maple syrup in place of the sugar? This looks yummy!

  • Nicole
    December 8, 2014

    Melanie – Yes, you can. Maple syrup works well in this recipe. That said, you can’t beat it into the meringue like you can with sugar, so you’ll have to beat the whites without and your meringue may be less stable. I recommend using part of the sugar and part maple syrup.

  • Diane
    August 1, 2015

    I recently started making greek yogurt and been looking for a frozen yogurt recipe. Most include ingredients that I am not familiar with and don’t have on hand. I want to know what goes into the food I eat. I believe I just found it. Now I will order an ice cream maker and get started. Ingenious!

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