Yiaourti me Karydia, Greek Yogurt with Walnuts and Figs
Across Greece, breakfast is often little more than thick strained yogurt with something sweet and something crunchy spooned on top. The sweet part is usually honey; here it is dried figs cooked down with orange into a dark, jammy compote, so the sugar comes with its fruit and fiber attached. Use a soy-based plant yogurt for the protein, toast the walnuts so they actually taste of something, and make the compote ahead: it keeps a week in the fridge and spoons cold straight onto the yogurt. It is a breakfast that assembles in the time it takes to boil a kettle.
Ingredients
- 3 cups Plain plant yogurt, thick, soy-based
- 8 Dried figs, stemmed and chopped
- 1 Orange, zested and juiced
- 1/2 cup Walnuts
- 1/4 tsp Ceylon cinnamon, ground
Method
- Toast the walnuts in a dry pan over medium heat for 4 to 5 minutes until they smell nutty, then chop them coarse. Toasting dry drives off the raw edge and deepens the oil in the nut, and it is the one step people skip that changes the whole bowl.
- Zest the orange, then juice it. Simmer the chopped figs with the juice, a strip of the zest, and the cinnamon in a small pot for 8 to 10 minutes until the figs slump and the liquid turns syrupy. The figs carry their own sugar, so cooking them down concentrates it into a compote that needs no honey.
- Let the compote cool for a few minutes so it does not thin the yogurt. Warm compote on cold yogurt is good; hot compote just melts it into soup.
- Spoon the yogurt into bowls, swirl the fig compote through it, and scatter the walnuts and the remaining zest over the top. Choose a soy-based yogurt for the most protein, which is what turns this from a snack into a breakfast that holds you to lunch.
Nutrition
Estimated per serving: 270 calories, 9 g protein, 5 g fiber, 35 mg sodium. Computed from USDA FoodData Central reference values for the main ingredients. This is an approximation, not a laboratory measurement. How these are computed.
Cost per serving is estimated from US national-average retail prices for cheap staple forms, using BLS dried-bean prices and USDA produce prices. Prices vary by store and season, so treat it as a guide, not a receipt. How this is computed.
