The Best Way to Make a Smoothie Without Yogurt
We all like perfect smoothies which creamy, rich in nutrition, and luscious. There is a great formula to create them, and one of the tips is adding yogurt to your smoothie.
Yogurt is fermented milk or milk treated with bacteria to produce lactic acid (hence the mildly sour taste), resulting in a thicker consistency. The ingredient is added to a smoothie to give it a fuller and denser texture at once gives the benefits for your digestion system.
Some like it without the yogurt: they may be lactose intolerant, gluten sensitive, or dislike yogurt. If you don’t like it, keep reading, and let’s discuss how to make your favorite smoothie without yogurt.
How do you Substitute Yogurt in Smoothies?
Traditionally, a smoothie combines fruits, veggies, or other ingredients (main flavor) and thickening agents. The thickening agents can be yogurt, heavy cream, ice, or other elements that a smoothie has, but an ice slushie doesn’t.
It is also what makes a smoothie, well, smooth and creamy. But if you choose to leave out the yogurt, here are some ways to make one without it:
1. Stick with the classic formula: fruit, ice and milk
Fruits like banana, strawberry, and avocado are naturally thick when you blend them. They are also easy to mix and match due to their natural flavors. Again, no need to add sugar since fruits are organically sweet.
A simple fruit smoothie recipe would require less than 5 minutes. You need to add some ice cubes, fruits you want, milk, and additional ingredients into the blender and blend until smooth.
Now, some of you have opted out of yogurt since you are lactose intolerant or want a dairy-free smoothie, so replacing it would not make sense to replace it with milk. However, you can still choose coconut water or fresh juice.
If you don’t want an extra amount of water from the ice cubes, I recommend you freeze your fruits first. Make sure you use a blender that can crush ice; otherwise, your blender can overheat easily.
2. Replace yogurt with plant based milk
Replacing yogurt with milk as point #1 is a common choice, but you can substitute with plant-based milk if you’re vegan or lactose intolerant.
The main idea why most people are adding yogurt is because it will give their smoothie a good amount of fats from the milk. In the end, it will make the smoothie thick as fudge.
The good thing is we can still get some amount of fats from plants, especially from peanuts. That is why it is very common to use almond milk, coconut milk, or soy milk to replace dairy milk.
These vegan milk are easy to get in the groceries, or if you want, you can make at home with a juicer or blender.
3. Add Protein Powder
Protein powder, either whey powder or vegan powder, is a food supplement that provides the maximum amount of protein to the average person. They are also integrated into shakes and smoothies to make them more palatable.
Ask any gym-goers and health buffs what protein smoothie they recommend, and they will answer banana apple smoothie (or something close to it).
The idea is simple: you get equal parts of chopped banana and apple, two scoops of your preferred protein powder, water (or milk), and ice. Make sure you dissolve the powder first to avoid lumps.
This is an excellent alternative to yogurt since it provides more protein and keeps the smoothie thick. Unlike yogurt, protein powder has a significantly longer shelf life, a practical choice for all smoothie lovers.
Replacing yogurt or outright removing it in your smoothie recipe is worth trying. It may lead to an appreciation for a new type of smoothie. After all, smoothies keep evolving through unique combinations.
4. Be Creative With Other Ingredients
Do not feel as if you are stuck with yogurt or milk. You can still add other ingredients to make your smoothie richer. For example, use peanut butter, chia seeds, hemp seeds, and flax seeds.
An ounce of chia seeds provides 11 grams of fiber and 4 grams of protein. Meanwhile, most nutrition facts say an ounce of regular and Greek yogurt provides around 1.2 and 1.9 grams of protein, respectively. So you got the better substitution.
If you are now skipping the fat from yogurt, you might as well maximize the health benefits by using tofu, specifically silken tofu.
Silken tofu is simply pureed tofu. Blending a block may result in bits of it floating in your drink. Also, silken tofu, when mixed with ice and fruits, makes a smoothie silkier. It gives a clean and neutral taste, so it is a good pair for something sour and succulent like a berry.
Meanwhile, if you don’t want to lose the yogurt’s probiotic things, simply use coconut kefir as a replacement.
There are a lot of ingredients that you can use to replace yogurt; you don’t need to worry because smoothies are drinks that are hard to mess up. Even if you have the wrong amount for the ingredients, chances are it will still taste good.
