I was reading a mag. and a woman said that she used plain yogurt strained of it's water content in place of sour cream and can't taste the difference. Does anyone do this? If so, is there really no difference in taste? How do you strain yogurt?
You can strain yogurt really easily by lining a strainer with a coffee filter then put the yogurt inside the filter. Put the whole thing in the fridge (so it won't spoil) and wait a day or so. What you get is a yogurt with the consistency of sour cream, but I don't think it comes close to tasting the same! I just use low-fat or fat-free sour cream. However, I do like the strained yogurt on toasted english muffins or bagels.
I do this all the time. I always have NF yogurt on hand and I never have sour cream (NF or otherwise). Plus, if I buy NF or LF sour cream for a recipe that uses only 2 tbsp, the rest of it is going to sit in the fridge and go bad, whereas I eat NF yogurt every day.
I use greek style yogurt, which is already strained, so I don't have to deal with straining it. I also like the taste much better than regular NF yogurt (I can barely eat regular NF yogurt anymore). I don't taste the difference with the Greek-style yogurt, although it's been so long since I ate sour cream that I'm not sure I'm reliable on this. But I can definitely taste the difference with regular NF yogurt.
1 tbsp of fat free sour cream is around 10 calories, 1 tbsp of Trader Joe's Fat-Free Greek-Style yogurt is about 6 calories. So it's more a matter of convenience for me than the calories.
Plain yogurt instead of sour cream?
I just use low-fat or fat-free sour cream. However, I do like the strained yogurt on toasted english muffins or bagels.
