Cheesecake is traditionally made with cream cheese, a dairy product that’s firm and creamy. Since yogurt is also a dairy product, with some types as thick and creamy as softened cream cheese, it’s no wonder that a popular application of yogurt is to make a yogurt cheesecake. The result is a tangy and sweet dessert; you wouldn’t even notice that it’s made with nutritious yogurt.

The type of yogurt to be used depends on the recipe, but always it should be plain, not flavored. Doing so will not only mimic the consistency, taste and color of cream cheese, but it will also make it adaptable to the cheesecake itself without any other flavor attached to it. The usual type of yogurt in many yogurt cheesecake recipes is the Greek-style yogurt, which is made from whole milk. Greek-style yogurt is already thick since it’s a strained type of yogurt. You just need to combine it into the batter.

Balkan-style yogurt, again in whole milk, may also be used. Recipes prescribe using yogurt that has no gelatine in it. Nonfat plain yogurt may also be used (and healthier too because it has no fat), but some recipes would ask you to strain the yogurt on a cheesecloth for 12 hours or overnight to remove the whey.

Meanwhile, there are baked cheesecake recipes that call for part cream cheese and part yogurt or part yogurt cheese and cream cheese. In these recipes, there’s no need to strain the yogurt. They are mixed together in a bowl. The crust in all these recipes is the usual graham cracker crust.

While baked yogurt cheesecakes are popular, there are also recipes that are no-bake yogurt cheesecakes. No eggs are used in this case so there’s no need to cook in the oven. Instead, no-bake yogurt cheesecakes instructs the baker to freeze or chill the whole cheesecake (including the crust, which is chilled separately before the filling is poured in) so that the cake holds its shape when sliced.