How to Make Frozen Yogurt

Article by Emily Saladino

Once you learn how to make frozen yogurt at home, the possibilities are endless. For those of you wondering how to make frozen yogurt without an ice cream maker, you’re in luck: This easy, no-churn Food Network Kitchen recipe doesn’t require any specialty equipment or hard-to-find ingredients, either. There’s only 25 minutes of active time, so you can prep the frozen mixture in advance and blitz up a sweet, creamy frozen treat in the blender whenever the mood strikes. All that’s left to do is grab your favorite frozen yogurt toppings and start scooping.

How to Make Frozen Yogurt Like a Pro

The key to making frozen yogurt at home is to keep ice crystals from forming so your dessert stays creamy. Here’s how the Food Network Kitchen team makes it happen.

Start with whole milk plain yogurt. The fat content of your base ingredient impacts how rich and velvety your homemade frozen yogurt turns out. Our recipe developers find that whole milk produces better results than reduced fat yogurt, and don’t recommend using Greek yogurt, which isn’t smooth once frozen.

Use freeze-dried fruit. Fresh berries have high water contents that become icy in the freezer. Our recipe developers opt for freeze-dried strawberries that don’t contain extra liquid and have a sweet, concentrated flavor.

Don’t skip the salt. That small pinch of kosher salt lifts the flavors of the tart yogurt and sweet fruit.

Adjust the sweetness—but keep the corn syrup. You can use slightly less sugar if you want a tangier frozen yogurt recipe, but keep the amount of corn syrup as written so your homemade fro yo stays silky smooth.

Customize Your Homemade Frozen Yogurt

Use this strawberry frozen yogurt recipe as a jumping-off point for different flavors and mix-ins. Omit the freeze-dried berries to make classic vanilla fro yo, or swap in lemon, almond, or mint extracts.

You can switch up the fro yo toppings, too. Create an at-home yogurt bar by setting out thinly sliced fresh fruit, mini chocolate chips, crunchy cereals, coconut flakes, toasted chopped nuts, chocolate sauce, small mochi pieces, and more.

The Best Equipment for Making Frozen Yogurt at Home

Ice Cube Trays

You can use regular ice cube trays to make this fro yo recipe—just push the fully frozen yogurt cubes out with a spoon—but our recipe developers found silicone ice cube trays are the easiest to maneuver. When the frozen yogurt recipe is ready to come out of the freezer, the cubes slide easily out of each compartment.

Blender

Food Network Kitchen uses a high-powered blender to make this fro yo recipe, but you can also blitz the cubes in a food processor. (Leave the food processor running for up to two minutes to create a creamy consistency.)

Piping Bag with a Round Tip

If you want your homemade fro yo to look like it came out of a soft serve machine, put the blended mixture into a piping bag with a wide, round tip. Pipe it into a bowl or cone in a circular motion to create a swirl. If that sounds too fussy, simply scoop it out of the blender and into a bowl—either way, it will taste delicious.