Vanilla Bean Greek Yogurt Chips

Do you like froyo?

I should rephrase that: do you LOVE froyo? I LOVE froyo.

There have been times that I’ve craved it so much it consumes me. I find myself daydreaming about it, imagining the sight of it nestled in my paper cup with the most flamboyant of tails. I make crazy flavor combinations in my head, mixing this one with that, tasting, swirling. The hardest part for me, at least initially, is deciding what toppings to sprinkle. It can be overwhelming, can’t it? With all the candies and sauces and fruits and oh my! But funnily enough, I always end up choosing the same two: granola and yogurt chips. That’s it. Out of all 3 million topping varieties and combos to choose from I will always pick them.

So, I’m going to be transparent with you. I made these thinking that they would be similar to the kind that I find at the froyo place– you know, the kind in the bin out in room temperature. Well, when these were all ready to go and frozen and yummy, I tumbled some into granola and left them out for a little while thinking it would be a nice snack for later. Um, a little word of advice: don’t do that. Unless you want little globs of yogurt melted onto your granola. Which I suppose still tastes good but wasn’t at all what I expected! I actually felt silly afterwards, thinking to myself, ‘of course they’re going to melt. you just froze them!’

Oy. I’m really glad I feel safe with you guys in sharing all my kitchen defeats. So while these really can’t be used for mixing into trail mix or baking, they are super fine as a topping for: froyo! ice cream! gelato! sorbet! your hands!

I’ve been sneaking into the freezer to grab a handful every now and again because they really do make tasty icy cold treats. And I hardly feel guilty because they are made from greek yogurt, which has mega amounts of protein (maybe not so much in these minuscule amounts but you catch mah drift) and they are all natural with no artificial nothing and no preservative junk stuff! Isn’t it sad that we have to proclaim that now? I mean good god, how did we ever position ourselves to think eating garbage was normal?!

p.s. don’t mind my ugly weathered old woman hands. they have seen too much iron lifting and hot water. apologies.

Vanilla Bean Greek Yogurt Chips

Persons

1

Prep Time

10 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 cup plain 2% greek yogurt (i love fage)
• 1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons powdered sugar

Instructions

1. grab two medium-sized baking sheets (they have to be able to fit in your freezer) and line with wax paper. stash in the freezer while you mix up the ingredients.
2. in a small bowl combine the yogurt, vanilla bean seeds, vanilla extract, and powdered sugar. use a spoon to press on the vanilla seeds to make sure they’re well distributed.
3. fetch the baking sheets from the freezer. grab a plastic gallon-sized storage bag and snip a small piece off the corner on the bottom to make a makeshift piping bag. you can also use a real piping bag with tip if you want to make fancier chips. scoop the yogurt into the bag and squeeze to get most of it towards the cut piece. with as much finesse as you can summon (mine was minimal as you can undoubtedly see), squeeze the yogurt onto the wax-lined baking sheet, making little chips or nibs. the size is ultimately up to you but i wanted them fairly small so i can add them as topping to my ice cream but if you plan on snacking these, they can be larger– they’ll just take a bit longer to freeze. i found that my chips looked neater when i pressed down as i squeezed them and then lifted it up quick to make a tiny tail at the top. experiment with different techniques though!
4. once you’ve filled the baking sheets with yogurt chips, stash back into the freezer for about 35-45 minutes. at that point you can scoop them off the wax paper and eat right away or store them in little plastic baggies or tubs in the freezer for later. depending on the size of these cuties, they will have different melt times. the smallest of mine started to melt pretty quickly at room temperature, if i just ate them by the handful– ahem, i mean fingerful… but they did just fine sprinkled on something cold like ice cream or frozen yogurt (yogurt on yogurt!).

// More vanilla-y things:

xo, steph