From greenqueen.com.hk
From coconut and soy to almonds and oats, there are a host of vegan ingredients that make for a fantastic base for plant-based Greek-style yogurt (or labneh). Here are six of the best offerings on the market.
I’ve had a lot of plant-based yogurts in my time. I’m indifferent to a lot of them – they’re either too thin or too sweet or just too different from the flavour I’m looking for. The texture is also absolutely key for me –hailing from India, I grew up on what we call curd, a thicker, usually homemade version of yogurt used in practically everything, and it’s delightful.
The closest thing to curd I can think of is labneh, a thick Middle Eastern double-strained yogurt or Greek yogurt (also strained, but slightly less thick than labneh). Creamy and perfect for both sweet and savoury applications, my life changed when I found vegan Greek yogurt. If you’re a yogurt fiend like me, you’ll love this list.
Here are some of the best brands selling dairy-free Greek yogurts:
Alpro Greek Style Oat/Coconut/Soy
Owned by food industry giant Danone, Alpro first launched its vegan Greek yogurt range in 2019 made from soy (5.8g of protein per serve), introducing five flavours in the UK market. These included the 400g flagship plain soy yogurt, as well as 150g packs of strawberry and raspberry, passionfruit, blueberry and mango Greek yogurts.
In 2021, it expanded its vegan labneh range with two non-soy 350g variants in oat (0.7g of protein per 100g) and coconut (0.8g of protein per 100g). The oat Greek yogurt is fortified with pea protein, while the coconut doubles down on the fruit, using coconut milk (45%) and coconut water (20%). Unlike the soy-based version, these two yogurts have no added sugars, while the oat one is the only variant that is not gluten-free.
Kite Hill Greek Style Plant-Based Yogurt
Californian plant-based favourite Kite Hill focuses on almond- and soy-based Greek yogurts. Its current line-up features two unsweetened flavours: plain and vanilla and offers 17 grams of protein per serve.
Available in two sizes (5.3oz/150g and 16oz/450g), Kite Hill combines almond milk with soy protein isolate and tapioca starch, with live cultures and flavours being the only other ingredients. This makes for a sugarless, gluten-free, relatively clean-label vegan alternative to Greek yogurt.
Silk Greek Style
Alpro isn’t Danone’s only brand on this list. Alpro isn’t available in the US, where Danone operates the Silk brand. In 2021, Silk added four vegan Greek-style yogurts to its existing alt-dairy range, all made from coconut milk and containing 10 grams of protein per serve.
Silk doesn’t offer a plain non-dairy Greek yogurt, instead focusing on sweetened varieties. The line-up includes blueberry, vanilla, lemon and strawberry yogurts, all combining a coconut milk base with pea protein. As per the brand’s website, the latter two are available in 5.3oz packs, the blueberry in 12oz (350ml), and the vanilla in 5.3oz and 24oz (680g).
Oykos Coconut Based Greek Style Dairy Free
If you thought that’d be it for Danone here, boy were you wrong. In 2010, the food giant launched the premium yogurt brand Oykos in the UK, which deals in both dairy and plant-based products.
Its foray into dairy-free began in 2020, when it launched an Italian-inspired vegan stracciatella Greek yogurt. It’s essentially a sweetened coconut yogurt with chocolate flakes, with natural flavourings and concentrated lemon juice rounding out the taste profile.
Oykos also makes a salted caramel-flavoured plant-based Greek yogurt, with 58% coconut milk content (marginally higher than the stracciatella version) and added caramelised sugar but protein wise, it’s only 0.7 grams per serve.
Oatly Oatgurt Greek Style
The world’s biggest oat milk brand – and perhaps most infamously famous alt-dairy brand – also has a whole line of yogurts. While Oatly‘s product line vastly varies from country to country, with certain markets containing drinkable yogurts in cartons, as far as its vegan labneh is concerned, that came about in 2020 as part of its wider UK launch of the Oatgurt line and features approximately 3.3. grams of protein per serve.
The Greek Oatgurt comes in a 400g pot and contains 11% oats (the regular plain version has 12%), rapeseed oil, potato starch and protein, alongside acids, salt, stabilisers. It’s also fortified with vitamins and minerals.
Vitasoy Greek Style Soy Yogurt
Hong Kong-based soy milk veteran Vitasoy last year announced its foray into the alt-yogurt space with a range of plant-based Greek yogurts in Australia, where it is the top-selling dairy alternative brand.
Its line-up contains four sweetened vegan Greek yogurts in multiple sizes, clocking in at 9.4g of protein per serve. The 450g plain option contains soy milk (with 16% soybeans) and soy protein, with sugar and cocoa butter contributing to the taste profile alongside natural flavouring agents and salt. There’s also tapioca flour and starch, and live cultures, and it’s fortified with vitamins and minerals.
This ingredient list is the base for the other flavours. The dairy-free vanilla and strawberry Greek yogurts come in 450g and 140g pots, containing 90% and 91% of the soy yogurt base, respectively, with the rest comprising a specific flavouring blend. A mango and passionfruit version, meanwhile, is exclusively available in a 140g pack (with 88% of the base).
https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/vegan-greek-yogurt-dairy-free-plant-based/
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