The time has come for me to spotlight another one of my favorite foods, and this time I'll sing the praises of Greek yogurt. The brand shown to the left happens to be a brand they sell at Costco, so we always buy it in a big, 36 ounce tub because that's how it's sold. Once upon a time, we'd wonder how long it took us to use it up and then we slowly discovered how versatile and healthy it is, so we no longer worry about it going bad before we finish it.
Let's rewind the clocks a few years when Greek yogurt burst onto the scene (that's poetic license for "Harris Teeter started stocking it in Raleigh, NC"). Anyway, these little containers of "Greek yogurt" started to show up in the store, and they were much more expensive than all the other yogurts, so I rolled my eyes and assumed it was another ploy to squeeze more money out of us poor, hapless consumers. It also reminded me of the many times I'd go to my Aunt Olga and Uncle Nick's house to find her making home-made yogurt (he's Greek, so this simply one of the things my Aunt did), but that childhood memory did not help me overcome my consumer skepticism, nor did I ever appreciate what she was doing, but I digress. Nonetheless, I ignored Greek yogurt for quite some time.
Then one day last year, we were at Joey and Olivier's house and they served up a nice Indian chickpea dish they made with homemade curry and coriander pods. Then they plunked the industrial-size bucket (yes, from Costco) of Greek yogurt on the table. So I started asking questions and discovered that they were using Greek yogurt in place of sour cream for quite some time. I decided to try it and immediately discovered that Greek yogurt is a wonderful substitute for sour cream. The taste is very similar, and since it's thicker than what we know as "regular yogurt," it really holds up when cooked into a dish or even just added on top as when I first ate it.
So why bother? We'll it's actually a matter of nutrition. Take a look at the nutritional information in the pictures below. On the left is the Greek yogurt and on the right is "reduced fat" sour cream.
Notice that the serving size of the Greek yogurt used to calculate the nutritional value is one cup (yes, c-u-p. One cup.) and by contrast the sour cream is two table spoons (two itty-bitty tablespoons). In order to compare, you can multiply the values for the sour cream by 10 to get equivalency. So here's how the math breaks down for one cup of each:
Greek yogurt "Reduced fat" sour cream
Protein grams 23 20
Fat grams 0 20
Calories 130 350
Carb grams 9 30
Cholesterol mg 0 100
The math is clear and the taste is similar, so for me it all adds up to a better way to enjoy fajitas, stroganoff, pörkölt (Hungarian beef stew) or gulyás (goulash). I also add it to red pasta sauce to make it a rosé sauce (I promise a post on this later). And Greek yogurt is very filling because it has so much protein, so sometimes I will serve myself a cup and mix in a little Splenda or honey, or grape jelly and it makes for a great lunch or heavy snack.
Enjoy it with impunity! Tell me what you think.
