Sugar-Free Stracciatella Yogurt

Stracciatella yogurt is vanilla yogurt with tiny chocolate chips or chocolate shavings. Stracciatella ice cream, yogurt, quark (curd) and alike are very popular especially in Southern and Central Europe. Usually these delicacies are very high in carbs and nowadays contain no-no stuff, like high-fructose corn syrup and cornstarch. Thanks to the grasping food industry, of course.

My recipe, however, is something else. First of all, this yogurt fun to prepare. Secondly, it tastes heavenly. Last but not least, it’s healthy! Just think about the probiotics in the yogurt gently nurturing your stomach while the antioxidants and flavonoids in the darkest of the dark chocolate give your strength and energy.

Now comes the best part: you don’t need more than 5 ingredients to make this dainty. If you would like to make things really simple, you need just 3. Please feast on!

Tips for making the sugar-free stracciatella yogurt

It’s good to keep the yogurt as cold as possible. Then the melted chocolate for sure solidifies into tiny chips and doesn’t dissolve in the yogurt.

I’ve used not less than 100% chocolate in this recipe. Might sound wild, but in reality the yogurt and the stevia tame the sharp intensity of the chocolate. Of course, nothing prevents you from using milder chocolate, but I recommend to use dark chocolate in any case. Mild chocolate might not give enough flavor. And really dark chocolate is simply healthier and low in carbs.

The flavors get even better if you let the ready yogurt stand in the fridge for few hours or overnight.

I usually melt chocolate in a water bath. I boil some water in a water kettle and pour the boiling water into a saucepan. Then I put the chopped chocolate in a heatproof mug and put the mug in the saucepan with hot water. I let it stand for few minutes stirring the chocolate occasionally. It doesn’t take long before the chocolate is melted. Just be careful not to let any water into the chocolate, otherwise it forms an ugly lump and you have to start everything from scratch.

When you have poured all the chocolate into the yogurt, there is usually some chocolate left in the mug. A rubber spatula is great in getting everything out.

Instead of scraping the leftover chocolate I like to add hot water or coffee to the mug and make nice chocolate coffee or hot chocolate. A dash or more heavy cream, and a tasty and warming drink is ready.

My experiments with the sugar-free stracciatella yogurt

My husband, who is German, loves all kinds of stracciatella goodies, especially yogurt and quark (curd). As low-carbers we didn’t find any suitable commercial products. Like so often, I decided to develop my own, healthy version. I think I succeeded, since this recipe was approved by my husband with praise.

At first I doubted that adding just melted chocolate to the yogurt might not bring the best results. The chocolate chips or shavings should be melt-in-your-mouth type. I thought that pure melted chocolate makes too hard chips and you hardly taste them. Therefore, in my first experiment I melted equal amounts of 100% chocolate and organic extra virgin coconut oil.

I added the melted mixture to the yogurt and stirred with a spoon, but the chocolate didn’t solidify. It didn’t form nice chips, it simply dissolved in the yogurt. Well, the result was nice and smooth chocolate yogurt, delicious as well, but I wanted stracciatella, so tiny chocolate chips.

In my next trial I melted only 100% chocolate, and poured that into the yogurt. The chocolate solidified into tiny chips, just like I had hoped! I was missing more sweetness and less vanilla flavor, so I had to adjust still amounts of those in my following experiments.

When I added stevia to the melted chocolate, the flavor became really nice. Erythritol, even the powdered type, would have made the chocolate lumpy and gritty, that’s why I chose liquid stevia. Also in the yogurt I used powdered erythritol because of reducing the possibility for grittiness. Powdered erythritol dissolves in the yogurt much more easier than erythritol crystals. I added also some stevia to the yogurt to give more sweetness and reduce the cooling effect of erythritol.

At first I used 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. For my taste buds that was too much. I decided to cut the amount by half. My taste buds commended.

You might wonder why don’t I simply add ready chocolate shavings or grated chocolate to the yogurt, but rather melt the chocolate first. First of all, melting the chocolate is absolutely funnier method. Seeing the melted chocolate to solidify into tiny chips or shavings is simply fun. Try it with your kids!

Secondly, at least when I grate chocolate it’s a huge mess. If not the whole kitchen is covered by grated chocolate, at least the table and most of the floor is. Nowadays I grate the chocolate on a plate in the kitchen sink, but it’s still all messy.

And third, you can control the size of the chocolate chips by the speed of mixing. The faster you mix the melted chocolate and the yogurt, the smaller chocolate chips you get. And vice versa.

Anyway, melting the chocolate is not that big thing, it basically melts by itself. It just needs stirring every now and then.

Tips for variation

For smooth chocolate yogurt you can do like I did in my first experiment: simply melt 1 oz (30 g) 100% chocolate and 1 oz (30 g) organic extra virgin coconut oil. Add the stevia. Mix the melted mixture in the yogurt, where you have added the erythritol, stevia and vanilla extract.

If you want to make things really simple, you can use just 3 ingredients: 100% chocolate, vanilla stevia or unflavored stevia and yogurt. Melt the chocolate and add there 10 drops stevia. Mix until well mixed. Add 30–40 drops stevia to the yogurt. Mix the chocolate and the yogurt as directed. Add more stevia or other sweetener if needed.

To make flavors even richer and smoother, you can add some whipped cream. Or decorate the servings with nice dollops of whipped cream.

For more crunchiness, you can add chopped nuts. Pecans suit especially well.

If you are a friend of mint chocolate flavor, you can add finely chopped mint leaves to the yogurt, or some peppermint flavor.

Hope you enjoy this recipe!