Coconut yoghurt (paleo/vegan/vegetarian)
Coconut yoghurt
It is famous in USA already, but in Europe, industry wants to keep us quiet with soy yoghurt… Because soy is not paleo, neither dairy is, it is not an option. So I decided to create my own coconut yoghurt and succeeded!
My inspiration.
Before I started paleo lifestyle, I loved to have yoghurt. Especially with fruits and honey in the evening. In my whole 30, I did not eat any kind of yoghurt (because I avoided dairy) at all. I did not miss it because of the big range of new food or food preperation I had to try out, but now, another month later, I’d really like to have yoghurt again. I heard of coconut yoghurt, which is popular in USA, but in Europe, it is really hard to get it. So I just did, what paleo people always do: create my own.
The experiment.
I took all the ingredients you find below expect honey and cashew cream and put them into my blender. Then I tasted the result and added 1 tsp honey and 1 tsp cashew cream and mixed it again. The mixture had the consistence of low fat yoghurt, then, and I was pretty fine with it. It did not taste too sweet (you can always use more honey and cashew cream if you want it sweeter) and the berries came out really good.
Because I added chia seeds and they are swelling out in any fluid (and because I had so much more yoghurt than I could eat), I decided to do a little experiment: I filled two more glasses with the yoghurt and left them in my kitchen overnight. The solid part of the coconut milk becomes even more solid in the fridge, so I wanted to know how the two glasses ‘develope’ differently if I put one of them into the fridge and leave the other one outside. After one night, this is the result:
On the right, you see the yoghurt that was not in the fridge. They look a little different, but consistence is basically the same. The only thing that happened to the non-fridge yoghurt is that the more liquid ingredients set themselves off at the bottom. The taste was also different. The non-fridge one tasted a bit like water somehow…
You see, it doesn’t do anything to consistence whether you keep it in fridge or not. But I have to say, the yoghurt tasted best when made fresh! Anyway, I am very happy with the result and whenever I want yoghurt, I can have one now easily. Maybe the taste of water gets away when more honey is added – I’ll try that next time. Now have fun with the recipe!
Ingredients for 1l coconut yoghurt:
400 ml coconut milk (1 tin)
2tsp raw cocoa powder
2 tsp chia seeds
2 tbsp coconut flakes
2 tsp raisins
1 handful strawberries
1 handful blueberries
1 handful raspberries
1 handful blackberries
1 apricot
honey (optional and as you like it – 1 took 1 tsp; or other sweetener, if you want it vegan)
cashew cream (optional and as you like it – 1 took 1 tsp)