How to Make Your Own Fruit-Bottom Yogurt
We’re so pleased to have Cheri Neufeld of Kitchen Simplicity back as a regular contributor. Welcome, Cheri!
Growing up, Fruit-Bottom Yogurt was always my favorite. I got so excited when I would see one packed in my lunch box. Somehow they always seemed more flavorful then regular yogurt and I loved how the little chunks of fruit would add a burst of flavor in my mouth.
I’m still a big fan of yogurt but I have a hard time eating ones that taste fake or processed. Anything that has the “flavor” and no fruit gives me a bit of the heebie-jeebies.
Eating yogurt is a daily occurrence for my son so I try and make sure that the yogurt I purchase has real fruit in it. One way to ensure that is to make your own.
Why make your own?
It may seem pointless to make your own yogurt when there are so many brands available but here are some of the reasons you may want to give it a try.
It’s adaptable
No more scrounging the store for the perfect flavor that everyone will like. You can make a batch according the likes and dislikes of your family. I’ll share more of how you can do this below.
You can make them allergen free
The first several months of my daughter’s life I couldn’t have milk products because it upset her stomach. I switched to soy for a while but honestly, I didn’t enjoy it. Adding fruit definitely made it a lot more bearable. If you or your children have any sensitivities you can make so many varieties, using the appropriate yogurt, that even a non-yogurt lover may be converted.
No sugar added
The recipe I’m sharing below is sweetened with honey so it’s completely sugar free (besides naturally occurring sugars, of course). Yogurt is my son’s perfect snack before bed and this way I know he’s not getting a surge of sugar just before he goes to sleep.
It’s fun
Get the kids involved in the process and they’ll more then likely be excited to have this healthy snack all week long.
All photos by Cheri
It’s Easy
The concept isn’t as hard as one might think. You make a basic fruit compote, spoon it into jars and top with yogurt. Simple.
Feel free to play around with the ratios. I go with a ratio of 1 part fruit to 2 parts yogurt, but you can add more yogurt if you like.
These fruit-bottom yogurts stay good for a week in the fridge, so you can make a batch on Sunday to last the whole week. Throw them into lunch boxes, sprinkle them with granola for breakfast or save them for an afternoon snack that the kids can grab for themselves after school.
Less waste
This is another great way to recycle small jars, the sealable lids make them perfect for packing along. But tupperware would work fine too.
Or, you can store them separately and layer them right before you dive in. The color of the fruit does start to seep into the yogurt by the end of the week so if you’re worried about looks then you may prefer that option.
Below I’m sharing the basic recipe along with some tips on how to switch up the flavors. You can make your yogurt match the seasons and your kids’ taste buds.
Fruit-Bottom Yogurt
Ingredients
- 250 g fruit 1/2 lb, peeled and chopped if needed
- 2 Tablespoons honey
- pinch salt
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 Tablespoon cold water
- 1 3/4 cups plain yogurt sweetened with 1 tablespoon honey, or to taste.
Instructions
Make compote
- Place fruit, honey and salt in a medium sized saucepan. Bring to a simmer, stirring frequently. Stir together cornstarch and water until cornstarch is dissolved. Pour into fruit mixture. Simmer 5 minutes, stirring often, until thickened and no longer cloudy. Allow to cool before layering with yogurt.
Make yogurt
- Add two tablespoons fruit compote to a sealable jar or plastic container. Top with 1/4 cup yogurt. Refrigerate, covered, for up to one week.
Notes
Nutrition
Ways to switch it up:
This recipe is endlessly adaptable. Here are some ideas of how to switch things up.
- Stir citrus zest, such as lime or orange, into the compote to add a punch of flavor.
- Mix up the fruits. Think strawberry-rhubarb, blueberry-plum or nectarine-raspberry.
- Add flavoring to the yogurt. Making a cherry yogurt? Stir in some almond extract. Making strawberry? Add vanilla.
- Turn them into a parfait by adding granola on top.
What kind of fruit-bottom yogurt would you like to make?
Hi Cheri! I am in love with your site. I am just wondering where you get all of the cute Ball jars that you store a lot of your different recipes in- I love the ones you used for the yogurt and would love to get them for us to reuse. Thanks! 🙂
Hi Erica! Thanks so much, that is so sweet of you to say. 🙂 I buy the jars at a hardware store here in Norway but you can also buy them online. The brand name is Bormioli Rocco and the jars are called Quattro Stagioni. This site shows a bunch of different places you can buy them online. If you search “Quattro Stagioni Jars” you should be able to find other retailers that sell them as well. They have a really cute selection of all sizes. Hope that helps and enjoy! 🙂
YUM!!
This looks so amazing, one of the best things I’v ever sew, and I see alot of food in the blogs. thank you for this wonderful recipe 🙂
I was thinking the same thing about the jars, they are SO cute!
I love the idea of this yogurt, we are cutting back our sugars and processed foods. This is an awesome way to make a “convenience” food that is still healthy.
Bernice
Love this! What a great idea, and sooooo much healthier (and tastier!) than the packaged stuff. Definitely will try this!
I think these are great and definitely an improvement on the store bought kind with chemicals and corn syrup. I am looking forward to trying this as a post-workout snack this week.
However, you can’t call it a sugar-free snack. Honey is a sugar, and if pasteurized, no less processed than raw sugar granules. Honey even has more calories than sugar (though you can use less and get the same results). The sugars in honey are similar to the sugars in fruit, but you are creating a dish with more than the naturally occurring sugar when you use honey.
I prefer honey in my recipes because it adds a flavor, as well as having other healthy benefits, so I think it is a good substitute for granulated sugars. But, you are getting similar calories and blood sugar impacts when you swap honey for granulated sugars.
Honey absorbs better in the stomach it’s a single compound sugar as cane sugar is a double compound sugar and requires more breaking down in the gut and if you have overgrowth of bad bacteria it will feed on this sugar but can’t with honey, so better for your gut ????
Great idea! We achieve the same result by stirring a teaspoonful or so of homemade jam into plain yogurt. It’s delicious, and we know exactly what’s in our yogurt.
I just fell over that looks so good!
Love this one. Featuring it on my facebook fan page today!
I love this! I eat jam with yogurt all the time but I didn’t think to put it in jars. Do you mind if I share?
As long as you link back, I would be honoured. 😀
Of course I’ll link back!
Hi Cheri,
Thanks for sharing these tips and amazing recipe. We try to make yogurt as often as we can. It’s healthier and so inexpensive. I love to incorporate and make difference flavors with seasonal fruits. So versatile.
I even marinated meats in yogurt to tenderize it. Gives so much more flavors in BBQ or tandooris 🙂
Great idea Kiran. I’ve used sour cream to tenderize meats before but yogurt is a great idea too!
Very creative!
This looked so good and yummy when I read it today I knew exactly what I was going to do when I got home. Cherry compote and balkan yoghurt. So yummy. Thanks!
Yum! I’ve got to try cherry next. So glad you liked it! 🙂
My husband liked it so much I made up peach today 🙂 I haven’t done much baking since our son was born in January but this was just so easy. Thanks again.
Yay! I love hearing that. 🙂
peach!
This is great, I culture my own Finnish yogurt at home but I haven’t ever tried adding compote to the bottom. I wonder if it would affect the bacteria’s growth in any way..
Not if the yogurt is made first and finished its process best to add after yoghurt is made sorry for stepping in
I wonder if you could do something with pumpkin? That is my favortite fall flavor, and I’ve made a yummy smoothie with it. Might have to experiment ….
That sounds like an absolutely delicious idea – sweetened with some maple syrup and flavoured with fall spices. Yum!
What a great looking batch of yogurt! I really want to try my hand at making my yogurt…it sounds like a lot of fun 🙂
Such I great idea. I have a jar of Rhubarb jam that i not set quite right that will be so goo for this idea. I love it thank you.
Any chance you might have some advice on how to do this with a yogurt maker? I have the euro cuisine digital automatic yogurt maker, but can’t find a recipe for it to do fruit at the bottom. I pinned this on Pinterest-I just know others will appreciate this recipe greatly, thanks for sharing it!
Sorry, I’m not familiar with using yogurt makers. Maybe try Google? Wish I could help. Best of luck!
You would make the yogurt in the yogurt-maker (I do this as well) and then later, you have to make up the fruit puree, put it on the bottom of an empty container and add your homemade yogurt. You can’t put fruit or flavouring in the yogurt maker – it’s done afterwards.
This looks so good! I love how you recycled jars and filled them with such a scrumptious looking yogurt. Thanks for posting the recipe! Will try soon.
Will the jar leak if i lay it down using the 2 piece lids on ball jars?
I love your post! My little girl adores fruit yogurt. She is a darling little toddler and as irregular as her meals go (no matter how much i try to make the meals as regular and as nutritious as possible…there will always be loopholes and misses, tantrums and frowning over veggies…) a yogurt every so often can keep her nutrition needs answered. A homemade one at that, can be best since i can have everything checked, from ingredients, to flavor and a little twist here and there. Thanks for all the suggestions, you made me a happy momma! =)
This is such a lovely post. We love fruit yogurt and the ones at the store are usually always full fat (yummo!) but it would be so nice to make your own especially with muesli added in and with light yogurt too. Thanks! And Merry Christmas!
This is such a great idea! My husband loves fruit on the bottom yogurt, but it is stupidly expensive and surprisingly hard to find. You even made it healthy! Kudos to you.
Glad I found this site! My hubby loves fruit on bottom yogurt and I tried putting my homemade yogurt on top of commercial peach preserves and he thought it was too sweet, so I think he’ll like this better with the honey rather than sugar. I had lots of strawberries to use up, so I made a double batch. I’m making him a few jars to take to work with his lunch, but put the rest into a mason jar to just add to my yogurt when I eat it (and granola on top, yum!). How long will just the fruit compote last by itself in the fridge? It would be great to make a few flavors at once and have the variety to use as needed, depending on my mood 🙂
I love your idea! I have always hated the store brought fruit flavored ones because they are too sweet for my liking and some tastes artificial! I notice that you used cornstarch in the fruit bottom recipe, but will it be okay if I omit it? Or will it turn out too watery?
i LIKE TO START MY OWEN YOGURT BUSSINES. mAYBE STARTING IN SOME COFE SHOPS. ( MY DAD ALREADY DOES THAT IN SOUTH AMERICA BOLIVIA AND IT REALY TOOK OFF) I LIKE TO START ONE HERE IN THE STATES HOPING TO GET INTO STARBUCKS AND OTHERS. i LIKE FOR MY MYOGURT SHOP TO BE KNOW AS HAVING THE MOST VARIETYYOGURT OF ALL TIMES. FOR KIDS ADULT, ON DIETS, FOR THOSE WHO LOVE SWEETS ETC.. iF THERE IS ANY ADVICE YOU CAN GIVE ME i WOULD BE IN GREAT GRATITUDED. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME. DAVID BUSCH
Great recipe! I was snowed-in this weekend, found this online and tested it out. Excited to share the recipe with my blog readers… and of course will link the credit back to you! 🙂 Thanks for posting!
This is a great recipe. I used 1 part blueberries and 3 parts strawberries (what I had on hand). My son doesn’t like the skin of fruit in his tougher so I cooked the fruit down until it was thick and then blended it in my Vitamix. The flavor was great and the sauce was thick. I noticed that the cornstarch took some of the tasty punch of the fruit, away. Next time I may omit the cornstarch as the sauce was already thick. Thank you SO much!
Yogurt*
I didnt have cornstarch but I did everything else, it was very yummy….thanks for recipe!
Wondering if I could in some way switch out the corn starch for gelatin? Trying to find more ways to eat gelatin 🙂
Looks great! How long does it take to get the fruits simmering?
Thanks for this we are milk, egg, wheat and peanut free and I was looking for something different for puddings! The fact that you mention they last for a week in the fridge was all I needed to make a batch with blueberries in this morning!
I just came back from Paris, France. All the yogurt there comes in glass jars, and looks and tastes home made. So I purchased a yogurt maker, and just made my own yogurt. I added fresh fruit to the home made yogurt recipe. Just follow the recipe that comes with the yogurt maker -it is delicious! I believe this is one of the reasons why French people aren’t fat. It is easy and fun to make, and you and your children will be amazed at the easy process. Enjoy!
why could I not put fruit compotton the bottom of the yoghurt jars and then fill up with the milk and yoghurtstarter. Then process it in the yoghurt maker??
Hi, this recipe looks yummy!
How long it can last if stored in the refrigerator ?
I was wondering the same thing. I would guess your best bet would be to follow the date on the yogurt you are using, if store bought. I know some glass jar yogurts for sale here in the US now can last up to a month.
I often use any of my extra pumpkin pie filling in my oatmeal or yogurt. It’s amazing. mixing pumpkin pie filling with peach is also a great combo!
Im new to yogurt making but my favorite yogurt is the oui by yoplait key lime. Im looking for a good recipe but there just arent any.
I’d like to make a lime or lemon one, but the recipes I’ve seen just say to add a squirt of juice. Would it work to mince up a lime, cook it with some sugar, and add it to the yogurt?
Is the cornflour for thickening? Can it be made with gelatine instead?
My family and I love yogurt fruit, the recipe you shared is great and I have made yogurt successfully. Thank you so mush <3
Thank you !!!yummmmm!
Works great with goat milk yogurt!!!