Healthy Sour Cream Substitute

If you’ve followed my blog for a while now, you know that I love making recipes healthy that would otherwise not be “allowed” on ANY diet.  And I do it by just swapping out a few things.   Check out my protein pancakes or all my healthy alternatives for snacks, chili and casseroles.

 Today I was talking to a client who has the hardest time giving up the fatty foods she loves and occasionally gives in to.   Like me, she loves anything with cheese, or bacon and absolutely loves sour cream whether to dip or dollop.  So I started to tell her about my sour cream substitute and she immediately started with how she doesn’t like greek yogurt.  But guess what?!  There’s something even better to use than greek yogurt…… its cottage cheese!!

It may not sound very appetizing at first but neither did the greek yogurt idea when I first heard that!   But cottage cheese is LOWER in carbs and HIGHER in protein than greek yogurt!   All you have to do is blend it up with a splash of lemon juice and white vinegar and VOILA!…. a sour cream alternative that is healthy and you can barely notice a difference!

If you don’t like the hint of lemon, try it without it and just use white vinegar.   Nutritionally, this sour cream copycat recipe is considerably healthier than regular sour cream.  The only issue with using cottage cheese is that it is very high in sodium; so I recommend using a low sodium cottage cheese to eliminate that problem. 

Put the cottage cheese, lemon juice or vinegar, in a blender or food processor and blend until it’s smooth like sour cream. Depending on your blending appliance, you may need to stop blending periodically, scrape down the sides, stir, and blend some more until it’s smooth.  An immersion blender works faster and better.   Check Amazon for the Kitchenaid immersion blender.  It’s the best for small quantities like this.

Ingredients

• 1 cup cottage cheese (whole, low, or no fat; use low-sodium, if desired)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice or white vinegar*

Directions

*Use white vinegar for a taste that is most similar to sour cream. Use lemon juice if you prefer a faint hint of lemon taste.

Combine ingredients in blender, food processor or with immersion blender. Blend on high until smooth, stopping and scraping down sides as needed.

Serve a dollop on baked potatoes, chili, nachos, enchiladas, or stir into recipes in place of sour cream. Great for sour cream based dips.

Store in refrigerator.   Makes 1 cup.  Recipe may be doubled.

 

Throw a dollop (or 2) on chili, nachos, enchiladas, burritos, or tacos. Use it in recipes that call for sour cream. It’s an especially good substitute in sour cream based dips.  Tastes like the real thing.

(Guiltlessly) Enjoy! 

🙂