It's not every day you can use the words "healthy" and "pie" in the same sentence. But "healthy yogurt pie" works. Unusual but nutritious, yogurt pies combine yogurt's age-old benefits with either savory protein such as chicken or the natural sweetness and nutrients of fruit. With some imagination, yogurt pies can become fortifying desserts, snacks and even breakfasts.
Yogurt: What Is It?
Yogurt is fermented milk containing beneficial bacteria called Lactobacillus delbrueckii subspecies bulgaricus and Streptococcus salivarius subsp. thermophilus. According to Creative Cooking Corner, these beneficial bacteria inhabit your gut, protecting it from harmful bacteria that cause diarrhea and inflammatory diseases. The bacteria promote digestive and gastrointestinal health and counteract the effects of antibiotics that destroy good bacteria while fighting infection elsewhere in the body. Yogurt's bacteria converts milk's lactose into lactic acid, improving its digestibility for lactose-intolerant people. Finally, yogurt contains 8 grams protein, which is equal to milk; and 488 milligrams calcium per cup, which is one-third more than milk..
Pie: What is It?
Pie is comfort food, representing wholesome, homemade cooking. The phrase "...as American as apple pie" carries historic and joyful implications of a youthful country inventing dishes with its natural bounty of fruit. As such, pie generally brings smiles to those who make, serve or eat it, yet its potential as a health food has been overlooked. The very first pies, as described by What's Cooking America, were hearty, meat-based concoctions with coverings of whole-meal crust that served as a modern day equivalent of an aluminum pie pan.
Healthy Yogurt Pie: Benefitting Bodies and Bank Accounts
Yogurt can be cheaply produced at home with a starter kit of milk and fermenters. An affordable replacement for expensive cheeses and highly-processed fillers, its bounty of nutritious compounds can even decrease doctor-related expenses. Any cheesecake or cheese pie recipe can be tweaked to incorporate yogurt, and with its pudding-like consistency, yogurt can replace sugar-laden custards and jellos in recipes like lemon-meringue pie. You can make a healthier crust by replacing refined flour with whole grain flour or pulverized graham crackers.
Savory Yogurt Pie: It's What's For Dinner
Copy Kat provides savory pie-plate dish of chicken breasts and Parmesan cheese seasoned with herbs and coated with yogurt. The chicken provides low-fat protein and anti-inflammatory compounds, and the yogurt provides many benefits as described above. You can further boost this pie's vitamin profile by adding diced broccoli, carrots and garlic.
Sweet Dessert: Breakfast, Too
Cheesecake's classically rich flavor and satiny texture can be mimicked if you use a thick, creamy yogurt with honey and pureed fruit. Meals Matter provides a recipe for low-fat, calcium-packed Yogurt Cheesecake featuring nonfat plain yogurt, eggs, flour, vanilla and sugar, all poured into a simple graham cracker crust. This recipe yields a respectable nutritional profile: 338 calories, 11 g protein, 348 mg calcium, and only 6 g fat.
This reflects half the calories and fat of cream cheese-based cheesecake. With Meals Matter's recipe, you can replace the refined sugar with equal amounts of pureed fruit--cherries are good--plus a quarter cup of honey, adding protective phytonutrients and anti-allergen compounds. A super-healthy variation of graham crust described by Not Dabbling In Normal includes whole wheat and barley flours.
Simple substitutions of yogurt and fruit improve any rich dessert or quick snack. Explore yogurt pie's possibilities and reap its many rewards.
Member Comments