The Best & Worst Yogurts on Shelves—Ranked!
Whether you're looking for an on-the-go breakfast, the perfect post-workout fuel, an appetite-stabilizing midday snack, or a guilt-free dessert, a carton of yogurt will likely fit the bill. What makes this fermented dairy product so versatile? It's packed with muscle-building protein, full of satiating healthy fats, brimming with gut-healing probiotics, and rife with the fat-melting duo of calcium and vitamin D.
There's only one problem: dairy aisles are now filled with more yogurt options than there were hippies at Woodstock.
Before the yogurt rush, choosing a container meant you just had to decide if you wanted blueberry or plain. Now, you can choose how much fat you want, what kind of toppings you want to flip in it, or even what country influenced the recipe. (That's right, Greek yogurt isn't the only foreign yogurt; there's also European, Mediterranean, Australian, Icelandic, and American!) And because some manufacturers cram as much sugar and artificial ingredients into these containers as they do into a bag of Sour Patch Kids, it's not wise to pick up whichever yogurt first catches your eye.
That's why we scoured grocery shelves to research the top yogurt brands. Skim the list to see where your favorite ranks, and scroll to the bottom to see which brands scored top marks. And while your mind is still on breakfast, don't miss these drool-worthy best overnight oats recipes.
Dannon Light & Fit Greek Nonfat Vanilla
Ingredients we don't like seeing in our yogurt: artificial sweeteners, artificial flavors, modified corn starch, and fructose. Each of these nasty additives is found in Dannon's Light & Fit Greek yogurt.
So Delicious Dairy Free Coconut Milk Vanilla Yogurt Alternative
We want to love this dairy-free yogurt alternative, because we love all things coconut, but it's really a sugar bomb without any protein and hardly any fiber. Coconut is a healthy fat to eat, but there's not much else to this option.
Powerful Yogurt, Vanilla Bean
The only reason Powerful Yogurt can claim to be the highest-protein yogurt on the market is by giving you the largest serving size in the market. They found a place on our worst end of the list because of what we consider to be the unnecessary addition of a potentially carcinogen-containing ingredient: caramel color.
Activia Probiotic Lowfat Yogurt, Peach
Activia bills this yogurt as low fat, which it is, but there are lower-fat options out there. Though you will get lots of probiotics with this yogurt, you're still getting quite a bit of sugar. While we like that it's pure cane sugar and not a sugar substitute, yogurts with no sugar added will better fit a healthy lifestyle.
La Yogurt Yogurt, Lowfat, Blended, Blueberry
You have a lot of sugar in this yogurt, making it almost more like a sweet treat than a nutritious snack. Of the 19 grams of sugar, 12 grams are added — we can forgive the 7 grams that come from the dairy and blueberries, but those extra grams push this into the unhealthy category.
YoFarms Yo Crunch Vanilla M&M Yogurt
It shouldn't be surprising that this yogurt isn't really on the healthy side — it does come with M&M's after all. The calories are still pretty low for including candy, but it's also a pretty small serving. And though the sugar is significant, it does come packed with a protein punch. It stall falls into the worst end of the list, though, simply because candy with yogurt is just not necessary.
noosa Tart Cherry Yoghurt
The first thing to remember about this noosa yoghurt is that it is a larger serving size than most of the other yogurts here. That being said, noosa yoghurt is delicious because it's made with full-fat milk and a lot of sugar. Yes, it does have a lot of calcium because of that, but it's so high in calories and carbs you're better off not eating this very often.
Liberte Organic Whole Milk Yogurt, Sweet Cream
Liberte's Mediterranean yogurt starts with pure, organic whole milk, sourced from a co-op of family farms. It's lightly sweetened, but we wish there was a little less fat and calories and a little more protein.
Oatly Yogurt Alternative, Non-Dairy, Full-Fat, Mixed Berry
This is a great dairy-free yogurt alternative. The oat milk does add a lot of carbs to the mix, as well as calories, but it has a good amount of good fat. We just wish it had a bit more protein and calcium.
Oui by Yoplait French Style Yogurt, Raspberry
Looking at just the numbers here, it seems as if Oui by Yoplait is just a sugary snack with a lot of calories. However, when you look at the ingredient list, you'll see it's incredibly short — which we love. There are only seven ingredients in this yogurt, nothing extra.
Wallaby Organic Lowfat Creamy Australian Style, Vanilla
Wallaby is organic (and has less sugar than some of the other options). Nonetheless, Wallaby offers less protein and no vitamin D — an essential one that helps your body absorb bone-building calcium and supports your immune system.
Chobani Greek Yogurt, 0%, Strawberry
Chobani's flavored Greek yogurts are delicious because they're very sweet. The fruit adds quite a bit of sugar to the yogurt, so even though they're low in calories and fat, the sugar also adds a lot of carbs. This yogurt's saving grace is the amount of protein.
Chobani Greek Non-Fat Yogurt, Vanilla Blended
While their plain flavors have no added sugars, Chobani does a good job of keeping sweetened flavors low on the added-sugar front, with only 13 grams of the sweet stuff that's matched by an equal amount of metabolism-revving protein.
Dannon Oikos Triple Zero Greek Nonfat Yogurt, Vanilla
Cultured from milk and enzymes, no yogurt should have fiber in it. That being said, Dannon's addition of chicory root fiber allows the yogurt's six grams of naturally occurring sugar to be matched with an equal amount of digestion-slowing fiber. Chicory root fiber is a source of inulin, a prebiotic that may help feed those live active probiotic cultures and can help minimize spikes in insulin after a carb-heavy meal.
Fage, Plain 5% Total Greek Yogurt
Fage's plain Greek yogurt comes with a higher calorie count because of all the protein it contains. While plain Greek yogurt isn't the most delicious snack to have, it's great for using as a sour cream substitute or with fresh fruit and a little bit of honey.
Smari Organic Icelandic Yogurt Nonfat, Vanilla
Viking explorers relied on skyr — Icelandic yogurt — for energy and nourishment when they were traveling or farming. Because it's strained more than Greek yogurt, Icelandic yogurt is even higher in protein, so choosing this option will keep you full for hours!
Oikos Pro Mixed Berry Yogurt
This yogurt is low on the bad stuff and rich in the good stuff. It has an incredible amount of protein thanks to the added whey in the mix. There's practically no sugar or fat, which means you can eat one of these cups and satiate your hunger pangs.
Siggi's 0% Strained Icelandic-Style Skyr, Vanilla
It's marginally more expensive than the yogurts that sit around it on dairy shelves, but you'll be getting your money's worth when you pick up a carton of siggi's. That's because you're paying for the fact that one serving of siggi's yogurt uses four times the amount of milk as a regular cup of yogurt. (It's why this yogurt brand is so protein-rich.) It's also because the milk is from grass-fed cows and the yogurt is never bulked up with gums or artificial additives. In the end you're actually paying for yogurt — and not 20 grams of added sugar.
Read more about the healing powers of yogurt:
One Surprising Effect of Eating Yogurt, New Study Suggests
One Major Side Effect of Eating Greek Yogurt, Says Dietitian
