Betsy has become obsessed with fruit on the bottom yogurt during her pregnancy. She’s always been a big yogurt eater, but it has definitely ramped up in the last few months.
I wouldn’t call it a craving so much as a demand.
I noticed a few things after buying these yogurts with sugary syrup on the bottom.
First, they are more expensive than normal yogurt. This makes intuitive sense because there are added steps in packaging the yogurt. Betsy happens to like the most expensive brand in the store (more on that later).
Second, most brands use little actual fruit. It’s mostly sugary syrups. Of course they taste good because sugar tastes good. The brand Betsy is into actually uses pretty good fruit, but did I mention that they are really expensive?
These jars, on the other hand, are jam-packed with delicious fruit in a very light syrup. These jars cost me about half as much as the super-pricy brand. And they taste better. Go figure.
Fruit on the Bottom (and Middle) Yogurt Jars
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 cups good yogurt
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 16 ounces blueberries, frozen
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- ¼ cup water
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ cup slivered almonds
Instructions
- For blueberry sauce, combine blueberries, water, sugar, and cinnamon in a medium pot over medium heat. Cook until steaming and sugar is dissolved. If berries are frozen, continue to cook until they are thawed and almost bursting. Then remove from heat and let cool.
- Stir together yogurt and honey.
- In jars, layer in blueberry sauce, then about ¼ cup of yogurt, then more blueberry sauce, then another ¼ cup of yogurt. Top with slivered almonds and screw on the lid. Repeat with all the jars.
- Store jars in the fridge. They will keep fine for 1-2 weeks.
Nutrition
Did you make this recipe?
High End Yogurts
There are a bunch of high end yogurts hitting the shelves these days. Let me be clear… I have no problem paying for quality food. You can definitely do worse than spend your money on really good yogurt.
This happens to be the brand that Betsy likes (and it is really delicious). Just for a base, this 8-ounce individual container of yogurt costs $2.50.
More like put a Noosa-round my wallet! Amiright?!
There’s a hidden little secret in these guys as to why their yogurt tastes so much better than some other brands.
They put sugar in it. Pectin specifically… It makes the yogurt really creamy (pectin is the sugar used to make jam) and sweet. This container has 13 grams of sugar in it which isn’t a ton… for a soda.
There is naturally some sugars in yogurt but a normal serving of non-sweetened Greek yogurt will have about 9 grams in it.
OK. So they aren’t adding a ton of additional sugar, but it’s enough to make you go YUM!
Fruit on the Bottom Yogurt: The Homemade Version
I wanted my jars to be super-packed with fruit. I used an entire 16 ounce bag of frozen blueberries for mine which means each jar would end up with two ounces of fruit in it. That’s a lot!
I added a little sugar and cinnamon to them and just simmered them lightly for a few minutes.
You don’t want the blueberries to break down really. It’s nice when they are whole still in the jars.
This was my finished syrup. When I was spooning this into the jars, I left most of the liquid behind and just tried to get mostly berries.
Whatever you do, let this syrup cool down before making the jars. You wouldn’t want to add this hot syrup to a jar with yogurt.
I decided to cheat on my yogurt also!
I added a tiny bit of honey to it which really makes a difference to the flavor. If you buy a big container of yogurt, it’s very reasonably priced and you can make a lot of jars!
Then just layer them to your liking!
I like to spoon some fruit in the bottom, add about 1/4 cup of yogurt, then more fruit, then more yogurt. You get the idea.
Top these with some slivered almonds (optional) and screw on the lids.
These will keep beautifully for 1-2 weeks in the fridge. There’s no way they will last that long though. I’ve found myself snacking them for breakfast or even dessert!
You can re-use the jars and lids since you aren’t actually canning them.
I calculated that one of these big beautiful jars cost me about a buck to make at home.
That’s a pretty good deal in my book. Obviously you can change up the fruit as well although blueberry is definitely my favorite.
Are you a fruit on the bottom fan?! Leave a comment!
Cindy near Fruita
Look out raspberries.
Judy
Excellent post. I’m pulling out my fresh blueberries today! I’m enjoying your blog alot!!
Mary
i really don’t like yoghurt but even I like the Noosa brand. Really good for making smoothies.
Melissa
Nick! Why are you buying yogurt??
It’s super easy to make and it will save you a ton of money!!
Nick
Ha! Yea… I know. I’ve made it before too but a dude only has so many hours in the week and it took me 10 of them to put together a crib. :)
You’re not wrong though. Tons of savings if you make it yourself.
Anita
King Soopers has recently lowered their price on Noosa (it’s now $1.99 in Fort Collins)….. So, if she really really needs a Noosa yogurt then they are cheaper there ;)
Felicity
I had to chuckle at Noosa’s sales pitch, the secret of Aussie culture hee hee. It does sound tasty though. I normally avoid fruit on the bottom (because of the sugar) but these look & sound delicious! And you could use so many fruits :-)
Helene Lopes
I do enjoy Noosa because of their unusual flavors, but I make it a treat. My heart belongs to organic greek yogurt, just plain. I was going to try your recipe ( and I probably will) but I used my blueberries for sweet potato pancakes. The crib incident is only the beginning. The key is to suspend reality and read the directions for 3 days before taking on another major project, and work hard on stifling the curse words. You don’t want the school to be calling about the little bump’s savory vocabulary!
Nick
Ha! Thanks Helene. Stifling curse words is gonna be tricky in our home. I’ll have to work on that one! Thanks for the comment. ;)
Joe
Nice yogurt creations!
To quibble, the pectin only thickens the yogurt, it doesn’t actually have a big effect on the sweetness. Any substance like pectin, gelatin, etc. that creates a gigantic molecular network to thicken your food won’t have much flavor…think of corn starch and unflavored gelatin.
Also, if you reaaaally want to cut down on cost, try making your own yogurt. It is very simple and then your yogurt costs the same as milk. Yogurt for $4 or $5 per gallon is a steal, and it is actually better than the stuff from the store (homemade trials??) If you try it you might not go back… :-) In case anyone reading this isn’t sure about making their own yogurt, I wrote up a short post here: http://bytesoffood.blogspot.com/2013/11/homemade-yogurt.html
Keep up the great posts!
Nick
Hey Joe! Thanks for the comment. If that’s the case then I’m not really sure why Noosa has more sugar than other yogurts… Thanks for the link. I’ve made homemade yogurt before too. Definitely a money saver!
Renee
Probably just because the serving size is 8 oz. instead of the usual 6. Chobani, for example, has about 15-17 g of sugar in a 6 oz. cup, so pretty similar ounce-for-ounce. Have you thought about trying to calculate the sugar content in your recipe? As you said, almost half of the sugar in Noosa or Chobani comes from plain yogurt itself, so it’s hard to really reduce the sugar as compared to the higher-end commercial brands, even just adding fruit alone. Once you add in any sort of sweetener, I imagine the difference in sugar content is minimal, although I am almost certain yours would taste better!
Nick
Totally. Mine definitely has a higher sugar content than the plain yogurt due to the fruit syrup (although I tried to keep the syrup to a minimum) but I haven’t compared it to the fruit on the bottom version.
Renee
Sorry, my comment was confusing. I definitely meant that it would be interesting to compare your blueberry version to Noosa’s blueberry version. If it turns out that the sugar IS significantly lower in yours, that would be a big win.
tcmjem
Keep in mind when camparing homemade yogurt thst Greek yogurt uses double the milk of regular yogurt. You strain the yogurt to remove the whey to make it thick. That’s the reason why it has so much protein and more milk sugar, and why you don’t get a gallon of yogurt from a gallon of milk.
Nick
Ah! Great point. Thanks for the comment!
Donna
Not if you use the cold start Instant pot type yogurt, no straining! Google for recipes