Fantastic Shakes Without the Sugar

When the weather gets warm, the thought of sipping a cold frosty shake comes to mind. It might take a little advanced planning, but you can still sip on a thick, cold shake even if you are avoiding excess carbohydrates. Instead of sugar-loaded ice cream as your base, you just freeze some Greek yogurt ahead of time and use that instead.

1. Take your favorite plain, full-fat Greek-style yogurt and freeze it in either muffin tins or ice cube trays. You want it to be frozen in a size that can easily be crushed in your blender.
2. Let the yogurt freeze for several hours or overnight.
3. When it's time to make your shake, take 6oz worth of frozen yogurt (3 "muffins" with my tin) and put it in a blender with 3/4 cups of coconut milk, almond milk, cream, whole milk or half and half.
4. Pulse to get the frozen yogurt pieces well broken up.
5. Add your sweetener of choice such as erythritol, Splenda or raw local honey.
6. Flavor your shake with either vanilla extract, natural peanut butter, some unsweetened cocoa powder, or add some fresh berries.
7. Blend on high until smooth.
8. Serve in a frosty mug with a bendy straw.

This recipe is extremely flexible and the shake can be made as thick or as creamy as you like by adjusting the liquid amount. If you use cream as your liquid to reduce the carb count, be careful you do not blend too long or you will turn the cream to butter. Make extra yogurt cubes ahead of time and store them in the freezer in a freezer-safe container so you can make a shake whenever a craving hits.

Note: I have also tried this technique using frozen heavy cream and frozen milk. The best texture and flavor came from the shakes made with yogurt, but the cream will work in a pinch.