I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’ve fallen in love with a new budget ingredient: cottage cheese. A lot of people are turned off by the texture of cottage cheese, but when you whip it up in a blender it becomes as smooth and creamy as yogurt, and is just as versatile! I made a savory Garlic Herb Cottage Cheese Dip a couple months ago, so I thought I’d also make a sweet version for dipping fruit. This rich, tangy, and sweet Honey Vanilla Cottage Cheese Fruit Dip is a deliciously sensible option for dessert.
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Why Cottage Cheese?
Cottage cheese provides a similar creamy-tangy flavor and high protein content as Greek yogurt, but at a fraction of the price. The 24oz. tub of cottage cheese that I bought was only $1.59, compared to about $3.99 for Greek yogurt. Once the cottage cheese is puréed in a blender, the texture is thick and smooth, and like Greek yogurt, the flavor is versatile enough to pair with both sweet and savory ingredients.
What Type of Cottage Cheese is Best?
The brand and type of cottage cheese matters here. For the creamiest dip, avoid low-fat cottage cheese. I used Aldi’s “full fat” cottage cheese, which is only 4% milk fat, or slightly more than whole milk, and the dip was deliciously rich and creamy. I also tested this recipe with Breakstone’s low-fat cottage cheese (2% milk fat) and the result was a little on the chalky side. So make sure you’re using a cottage cheese that you enjoy the flavor of plain, and then it will surely taste good in the dip.
How to Use the Fruit Dip
Besides the obvious use to dip your fresh cut fruit, you can also use this fruit dip for other things! You can add it to your fruit smoothie, just like you’d add yogurt, for a creamy shot of protein. You can use it to make a parfait with fresh fruit and granola, or you can make some “fruit nachos” with cinnamon pita chips, finely diced fresh fruit, and a drizzle of this fruit dip.
Honey Vanilla Cottage Cheese Fruit Dip
Servings 4 about ¼ cup eachIngredients
- 1 cup cottage cheese (4% fat) ($0.53)
- 2 Tbsp honey ($0.25)
- ½ tsp vanilla ($0.15)
- 1 tsp lemon juice (optional)* ($0.01)
- 1 Tbsp water ($0.00)
Instructions
- Add all the ingredients to a blender and purée until smooth.
- Serve immediately with fresh cut fruit for dipping, or refrigerate until ready to eat.
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Equipment
- Small Blender
- Measuring Cups Spoons
Notes
Nutrition
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How to Make Cottage Cheese Fruit Dip – Step by Step Photos
Add 1 cup cottage cheese (4% fat), 2 Tbsp honey, ½ tsp vanilla, 1 tsp lemon juice, and 1 Tbsp water to a blender.
Purée the mixture until smooth and creamy. You may need to stop and stir a couple times to really get it going, but once it starts smoothing out, it should blend easily.
Serve with your favorite fresh fruit and enjoy!
I make a version of this but stir a few spoonfuls of peanut butter in, too. I add a sprinkle of cinnamon and dip apples in it, and it is the healthy dessert I look forward to all day!
Yum this is very good! Tastes just like any fruit dip you’d get at the store. Can’t wait to serve it to guests on Easter!
I’ve been wanting to add more cottage cheese into my diet because it’s so good for your gut and used in many anti-cancer programs. This is a great way to do that! I hate the texture so I’m excited to try whipping it up!
This is really good. I added about 1/2 tsp of almond extract, as well.
Just wondering how long this dip would last. Could I make it 3-4 days before using it?
It would probably be good for a few days. I usually try to limit my food to about four days in the refrigerator, but things can last longer or go bad faster based on so many different factors that I can’t provide an exact amount of time.
Ok, I made this yesterday, and it is SO good! So rich and creamy (my mom says it tastes cheesy, and also loves it) I just finished the first batch and blended up the rest of the carton. I think I’m going to start making it the whole carton at a time! Excellent boost of protein for my cut fruit, and I just had a little bowl of it with chocolate chips and pecans for dessert. It’s like cheesecake/cannoli dip!
After looking at your recipes, I want to start using cottage cheese in more things, but this is so good, it might be hard to save some cottage cheese for other things!
Great idea!
By the way, the recipe index sort by cottage cheese ingredient doesn’t show this recipe. I saw it when I was browsing the site yesterday and wanted to come back to it, and figured sorting by cottage cheese would be easier, but it has 5 recipes not including this one. Not sure how the system for it got messed up, but if this one did others might have, so it might be worth looking into.
Thanks for letting me know! We manually add those, it’s not an automatic thing, so every now and then they get missed. :) I’ll add it now.
I made a veggie lasagna yesterday with cottage cheese instead of ricotta and it was amazing! I am on team cottage cheese now. It’s easy to whip in my immersion blender.
This was delicious! Sweet but somehow also savory. Will mark again (and again and again)!
You discovered what I also discovered – full-fat cottage cheese pureed (and gotten on sale) is a wonderful ingredient to use in recipes calling for ricotta cheese as well as coming up with your own inventions. I pre-blend them so they are ready for any recipe.
Wow! THANK YOU for this recipe. I have colon cancer and getting enough protein is a huge part when it comes to going through chemo. I’ve exhausted so many protein sources, I basically never want to see another hard boiled egg again! Sometimes in the morning all I can tolerate is fruit so being able to include a protein source that is so complementary is killer. Really looking forward to trying this!! I also found a recipe for cottage cheese muffins (our local Jewish deli has an amazing one) that I think would go so well with some raspberry jam.