How To Prevent Homemade Frozen Yogurt From Turning Icy

If you're craving a little fro-yo, but you don't have a parlor nearby, that doesn't mean you're out of luck. Instead, you can whip up some homemade frozen yogurt with only a few basic ingredients. It's easy to make frozen treats with Greek yogurt, but you may find that the resulting fro-yo sometimes has an icy texture. This can be frustrating when you're going for smooth and creamy, but luckily, it's easy to remedy with a little additional sugar.

While ice cream, gelato, and frozen yogurt are all very different, sugar is the special ingredient that keeps the texture smooth and soft with all three. In the case of frozen yogurt, you want to include about one cup of sugar for every three to four cups of yogurt. This sounds very sweet, but the results are impossible to argue with. Mix it in with a pinch of salt and any other flavorings you desire, including cocoa powder or gelatin for texture. After that, feel free to add fruit or nuts to the mix, but remember that water-packed fruit will freeze solid, and might work best as a topping. Freeze your creation in an ice bath or your freezer, and you'll have a sweet dairy treat that's easy to scoop without any gritty icy texture. You can even churn your yogurt mixture to get it extra smooth. But the reason sugar works so effectively is backed by science, too.

You may be reluctant to add extra sugar to your recipe, considering that frozen yogurt can be a healthier alternative to ice cream. However, keep in mind that ice cream requires sugar for the same reason — freezing-point depression. The water in yogurt freezes into ice crystals unless it's kept at a low enough freezing point that it can't become solid as a rock. Sugar acts as what's called a total solid, which binds with the water molecules in the yogurt, changing their structure and preventing them from becoming ice. This keeps your frozen treat soft, creamy, and scoopable without a grainy, frosty consistency. Plus, it makes yogurt sweet, which is handy when you're using tart Greek or Icelandic varieties.

You can also implement a few other techniques for keeping ice crystals out of your frozen yogurt. One way to manage this is to ensure you have plenty of fat content in the yogurt, which keeps the structure strong and emulsified. You can also include citrus or a little alcohol, both of which help lower the freezing point, similar to sugar. If you want to avoid adding granulated sugar, you can try less-sweet inverted sugars like golden syrup or honey. In the end, though, the simplest way is also the easiest; be sure to use high-quality yogurt for freezing at home — and don't forget the sugar.