What is Icelandic Skyr?

What is Skyr? It’s like yogurt, but not quite. It’s made from milk solids once the cream has removed, has no milk in  it.  Icelandic Skyr is actually, strictly speaking, a cheese, and requires a lot of milk to make: up to 3 or 4x more milk than yogurt! It is made from skimmed milk (ironically, it is common to add cream to Skyr).

So, why is Icelandic Skyr so popular in Iceland? Well, we can think of at least 5 reasons. So without further ado…

1. It tastes good!

Icelandic Skyr hasn’t changed very much in essence, but there has been some innovation regarding flavours: berry, vanilla, chocolate and strawberry are the main choices. However, even if it’s just plain, Icelandic Skyr tastes great! We like to flavour it with honey ourselves, that way you can adjust the sweetness!

2. It’s Healthy!

Can you think of a food that is low fat, low carb AND high protein? Doesn’t that sounds like the holy nutrition grail to you? That’s Icelandic Skyr! Iceland has a disproportionate amount of Strong Men competing in the World’s Strongest Man competitions. What do they eat? Skyr! And dried fish, which is as close to pure protein as one can get!

3. Easy & Convenient 

Who doesn’t want healthy food that’s easy and convenient? With Icelandic Skyr, all you have to do ultimately is to spoon it out of the pot!

4. It’s Traditional

To eat Icelandic Skyr is to understand Iceland. Surviving in this harsh, unforgiving landscape that very often played nasty tricks on the population like volcanic eruptions, was very tough. Icelandic Skyr certainly had an important role is sustaining life in iceland!

5. It’s the start of so much more!

Icelandic Skyr is just the beginning of  all kinds of recipes! Think cheesecakes, sauces, and even soup! These are just a few of the awesome recipes you could concoct, and there are even entire recipe books dedicated to it!

Because Icelandic Skyr is so important, we make sure to include it in our Reykjavik by Food tour; this is a great little loop around the centre of town where we take you around to a lot of different places and show a variety of offerings, and you get to try it all! 

Have you tried Icelandic Skyr? What’s your favourite flavour?

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