A Review of So Delicious Greek Style Cultured Almond Milk

Eating a gluten-free vegan diet, I am always surprised at how few things I still miss. One of the few things that I do still occasionally think about is greek yogurt.  In fact, I miss yogurt more than cheese – while the later was an indulgence I enjoyed occasionally (Red Hawk anyone?), yogurt was an everyday staple.  In fact, breakfast had pretty much always included some sort of yogurt my entire life, as did at least one snack a day. In the few years before cutting out dairy, Greek yogurt was my preference, and it was a significant source of protein in my diet.  I would buy a large size (16oz? it has been so long) and portion out to reduce the number of tiny yogurt cups I added to the environment (sidenote, I am not as environmentally conscious as I should be, but when my yogurt habit included 2 yogurts most days, even I could see the benefit of buying a larger size).

When I read last year that So Delicious, makers of many wonderful vegan products, had ventured into greek-style vegan yogurt, I was both excited and skeptical.  While vegan ice cream and even certain cheese products can be great replications of the dairy-based original versions, yogurt has seemed to be harder to replicate.  I do like the some of the So Delicious Coconut Yogurts – the Raspberry and Chocolate ones are both lovely – but they taste like dessert to me, rather than yogurt. I have been happy with another brand, Amande (reviewed here and here), though, so was hopeful that So Delicious would create a great almond milk based greek-style yogurt.

And they did. Oh my.

I discovered tonight that my local Whole Foods just started carrying the So Delicious Greek Style Almond Milk Plain flavored yogurt and I promptly dug in as soon as I got home.  The verdict: the texture is very satisfying.  It is lower in sugar than most vegan yogurts out there, and higher in protein. I am so so pleased. In fact, while I try not to overconsume gums and carrageenan and rice or tapioca starches, if an item is a truly good item, I don’t mind that it contains some of those things.  This little yogurt is definitely beyond good.  The texture and tang is spot on. It has a bit of the vegan yogurt flavor, but I venture it is more prominent in the plain version. Since I always topped my greek yogurt with berries, I did the same tonight, and that masked that slightly vegan flavor, and the experience was quite authentic.

Like many other So Delicious products, this product is certified gluten-free through GFCO. As Linda commented in my post on Life, Gluten-Free, there is still some risk to GFCO products, but it is the closest thing gluten-free eaters have to a gold standard in gluten-free certification, so I am always pleased when a product is GFCO certified, especially when it is as good as  So Delicious Greek Style Almond Milk Plain flavored yogurt. Speaking of Linda, I am sending this review to her Gluten-Free Wednesday feature.