Healthy Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt
Cherry Garcia Ice Cream — the infamous Ben & Jerry’s frozen dessert described as cherry ice cream with cherries and chocolate flakes. While the flavor might be well known, its ingredients and nutrition label is often overlooked. With heavy cream as its first ingredient and sugar as both its third and fifth ingredients, we all know that a quart of that ice cream in our freezer would be pretty dangerous for a ravenous sweet tooth. It’s like leaving a shopaholic at a mall with a $10,000 universal gift card… we will eat the tub of ice cream and the shopaholic will buy enough to run the mall dry.
Ben and Jerry knew this, so they made Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt — basically the same as the ice cream but with the heavy cream swapped out for yogurt and even MORE sugar pumped into every serving (sugar is listed FOUR times in the frozen yogurt’s ingredient list while it’s listed TWICE in the ice cream).
Fourteen tubs of Cherry Garcia later, it was time for me to make a HEALTHY Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt recipe on my own. Greek yogurt creates a thick and creamy texture, and high quality flavor. What used to be a high fat/high sugar treat is now a low fat/low sugar/high protein dessert that can be eaten without feeling guilty of consuming half a cup of refined sugar in one sitting!
Healthy Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt
Ingredients
- 16 oz Non-Fat Black Cherry Chobani Greek Yogurt
- 16 oz Low-Fat Vanilla Chocolate Chunk Chobani Greek Yogurt
- 3 tbs Vodka
- 1½ tsp Liquid Stevia Extract
- ½ tsp Natural Cherry Flavor
- 3 tbs Organic Corn Starch
- 2 tbs Unsweetened Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder
- ½ tsp Xanthan Gum
- ¼ tsp Baking Soda
- ¼ tsp Salt
Instructions
- Freeze your ice cream maker bowl for 24+ hours (I used my KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment).
- In a stand mixer bowl with whisk attachment, add the yogurts, vodka, stevia extract, and cherry extract.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the corn starch, cocoa, xanthan gum, baking soda, and salt. With the stand mixer running, slowly add in the dry ingredients. Whip until smooth.
- Place the frozen ice cream maker attachment onto the stand mixer and turn on the "stir" speed. Pour ice cream mixture into the ice cream bowl and churn until soft-serve consistency.
- Transfer the ice cream into a freezer-safe dish. Cover and freeze until it's the texture you prefer (~3-5 hours). Serve and enjoy!
Just to prove how much healthier my homemade Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt is I decided to do a little nutrition label showdown! In the recipe box above is my recipe’s nutrition label and right here is Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia Fro Yo nutrition label.
My Healthy Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt is low fat, low sugar, high protein, and all natural. Oh, and you can take a second or third helping without feeling bad about anything. You won’t be putting your body through a turbulent sugar rush and sugar crash and you’ll consume ingredients that you have actually heard of!
See how thick and creamy it is? Absolutely delicious, you need it make it!
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With love and good eats,
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– Jess
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Indulge − no strings attached!
this sounds great. i want to get some cherry extract.
What beautiful pictures! This looks delicious. I have still yet to try chobani yogurt! It does look super creamy. 🙂
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Any substitute for the vodka?
I haven’t tried it but you can probably just omit it. Just let the ice cream sit on the counter for a longer period of time to get softer. Hope you like the recipe!
Thanks, for posting such healthy and delicious desserts.
Rosemary
Excellent blog you’ve got here… Take care!!
I love your glass dish you show the ice cream in. The ice cream looks ridiculously yummy too! Thanks.
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Can you use monk fruit instead of liquid stevia? I’m not a fan of the after taste stevia leaves.