These Homemade Yogos are a nostalgic treat made from dried fruit and a yogurt candy topping! With just 6 simple ingredients, they're an easy DIY version of the mid-2000s classic snack.
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📋 About the Recipe
- A brief history: Yogos were a popular snack in the mid-2000s. They were discontinued just 5 years after they were first produced. They were a fruity, chewy, candy coated in a "yogurt" shell. Although they were incredibly popular, there is speculation that they discontinued the product due to its high sugar content.
- Simple pantry ingredients. This copycat Yogo recipe uses just 6 pantry ingredients. They are also easy to store in your pantry for quick snacking after they're made, just like these homemade wild berry pop tarts, as well.
- Less sugar and more better-for-you ingredients. It's still a bit unclear what Yogos were made of, but they had a fruity, gummy-like center with a harder candy exterior. This homemade version uses dried fruits and yogurt chips, which still contain some sugar, but less of it. And as an added bonus, the dried fruit provides some added nutrients.
🛒 Ingredients
A few notes about the ingredients:
- Yogurt chips: These yogurt chips are similar to white chocolate but have a tangier taste. They melt just like chocolate, but help balance the sweetness of the fruit a bit better. I like to use yogurt chips, instead of regular yogurt, so that these snacks remain shelf stable. If you coat the dried fruit in real yogurt, you'd have to freeze them to keep them fresh.
- Coconut oil: Coconut oil is added to the yogurt chips to help them melt. It thins out the melted yogurt, making it easier to dip the dried fruits.
- Dried blueberries, cherries, and strawberries: Blueberries, cherries, and strawberries reminded me of the traditional flavors of Yogos, but feel free to use any dried fruits you like. I shaped each fruit into a small ball too, just like the original.
- Dye free food coloring: I prefer to use natural food dyes made from fruit and vegetable juices. The classic Yogos colors were purple, blue, and pink, but they had some other variety packs with other colors too. Use whatever colors you like best.
⁉️ Substitutions and Alterations
- No yogurt chips? Use white chocolate instead!
- Don't like dried blueberries, cherries, or strawberries? You can use dried apricots, dried kiwis, or dried pineapples too. The key is just to make sure they have a chewy, gummy-like consistency.
- Can't use coconut oil? You can use butter to help melt the yogurt chips instead.
📓 Instructions
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Cut the dried strawberries into ½-inch pieces. Use your hands roll the strawberries and the dried cherries into small balls.
- Melt ¼ cup yogurt chips and ½ teaspoon coconut oil in a small bowl in 30 second intervals in your microwave, stirring in between each interval, until melted and smooth.
- Use 2 to 3 drops of food coloring to dye the melted yogurt chips pink, purple (red+blue dye), or blue. *only use up to 3 drops because more food coloring will cause the yogurt to cease up.
- Using a toothpick, dip one dried blueberry at a time into the melted yogurt chips until fully coated. Use another toothpick to slide the fruit off of the first toothpick and place it onto the lined baking sheet.
- Repeat steps 3 through 5, two more times to coat the strawberries, and then the cherries.
- Place the baking sheet in the refrigerator for 5 minutes, or until the yogurt mixture hardens.
- Store yogos at room temperature in an airtight container.
❄️ How to Store
To store: Let the yogurt coating harden, then scoop Yogos into an airtight container. Store at room temperature up to 2 weeks.
🔍 Recipe FAQs
Yogos were a snack created in the mid-2000s. They were popular because of their innovative marketing and futuristic design. Kids loved to show off their "hip, new snack" when they were packed in their lunchbox.
Yogos were small balls with a chewy fruity center, coated in a yogurt-flavored shell coating. They came in packets labeled as different flavors, like "Strawberry Slam," "Crazy Berries," and "Berry Berry Banana." Each individual 'yogo' came in a mix of colors, like shades of red and pink, blue, purple, and yellow.
Yogos were discontinued by Kellogg's just 5 years after their inception. There's speculation about why they were discontinued, but most of the signs point to their super high sugar content and use of hydrogenated oils.
I'm not sure if anything has been officially confirmed, but there are theories that Yogos were discontinued due to health concerns related to the hydrogenated oils used in production.
Right around the same time that the CDC released date on the obesity epidemic, the high sugar content started to raise concerns as well.
Soon after the data was released, Kellogg's faced backlash about the amount of sugar allowed in its products and not too long after that, Yogos were off the shelves.
💭 One More Tip
Don't add too much food dye to the melted yogurt chips! If you add more than 1 or 2 drops, it will cause the melted yogurt to cease up and you won't be able to dip the fruit into it.
🍴 Related Recipes
Share your cooking with me! If you make this recipe, I'd love to know! Tag @yourhomemadehealthy on Instagram or leave a comment with a rating and some feedback at the bottom of this page!
Homemade Yogos
Equipment
Ingredients
- ¾ cup yogurt chips
- 1 ½ teaspoons coconut oil
- ¼ cup dried blueberries
- ¼ cup dried strawberries
- ¼ cup dried cherries
- Red and blue natural food coloring
Instructions
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Cut the dried strawberries into ½-inch pieces. Use your hands roll the strawberries and the dried cherries into small balls.
- Melt ¼ cup yogurt chips and ½ teaspoon coconut oil in a small bowl in 30 second intervals in your microwave, stirring in between each interval, until melted and smooth.
- Use 2 to 3 drops of food coloring to dye the melted yogurt chips pink, purple (red+blue dye), or blue. *only use up to 3 drops because more food coloring will cause the yogurt to cease up.
- Using a toothpick, dip one dried blueberry at a time into the melted yogurt chips until fully coated. Use another toothpick to slide the fruit off of the first toothpick and place it onto the lined baking sheet.
- Repeat steps 3 through 5, two more times to coat the strawberries, and then the cherries.
- Place the baking sheet in the refrigerator for 5 minutes, or until the yogurt mixture hardens.
- Store yogos at room temperature in an airtight container.
Notes
- No yogurt chips? Use white chocolate instead!
- Don't like dried blueberries, cherries, or strawberries? You can use dried apricots, dried kiwis, or dried pineapples too. The key is just to make sure they have a chewy, gummy-like consistency.
- Can't use coconut oil? You can use butter to help melt the yogurt chips instead.
Nutrition
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