Say hello to the ultimate smooth and luxuriously creamy healthy cheesecake recipe.
This. is. what. dreams. are. made. of.
Lighter and creamier than Cheesecake Factory – with a third of the calories and sugar!
I figured today—my birthday—is the perfect time to share one of my own personal favorite recipes. When I say this healthy cheesecake is good, you know it has to be really good… because I do not take my cheesecake lightly.
I’m exceedingly selective when it comes to good cheesecake.
So many cheesecake recipes out there are not only way too sweet (seriously, a cup and a half of sugar in a cheesecake is too much!) but also too firm. The perfect cheesecake should never be overpowered by sugar, and every creamy bite should absolutely MELT in your mouth.
2018 Edit – There’s now a Brownie Cheesecake Recipe too, because of course there had to be a chocolate version!
I ate my birthday cheesecake in my pajamas.
For breakfast.
Happy birthday, indeed!
Can we talk about the sugar for a minute?
It’s called cheese cake for a reason.
Many cheesecake recipes call for such a large quantity of sugar that the bold and savory cheese flavor is lost and sugar ends up being the only thing you taste. If I wanted to eat something that tasted like sugar, I would skip the cheesecake and eat a bowl of frosting.
(Not that eating a bowl of frosting isn’t also delicious in its own right…)
Sugar was the first thing I knew I could slash when it came to creating a healthier cheesecake recipe. I started by researching traditional cheesecake recipes to get a feel for how much sugar, cream cheese, vanilla, and other basic ingredients usually go into cheesecake. And then I played around quite a bit.
A lot goes into my recipe creations!
With this particular cheesecake recipe, I also knew I wanted to omit all the heavy cream called for in traditional cheesecake recipes and replace it with something much healthier.
Since cheesecake should have a subtle tang to begin with, I came up with the idea to use yogurt, and it worked perfectly!
Also left out were the eggs normally found in cheesecake recipes, which took a bit of trial to find the perfect replacement since eggs add moisture and bind recipes together.
Since there’s nothing more frustrating than having to visit multiple health food stores to locate all the ingredients in a recipe, I knew I wanted this healthy cheesecake to call only for ingredients you can find at a regular grocery store.
*Crust is the recipe from this post: Vegan Cheesecake Recipe
Healthy Cheesecake Of Your Dreams
Ingredients
- 24 oz cream cheese, such as trader joes vegan
- 2 cups plain yogurt, such as coconutmilk yogurt
- 2 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp cornstarch - or here's a Keto Cheesecake Recipe
- 1/2 cup sugar or maple syrup, honey, or xylitol for sugar-free
- pinch uncut stevia OR 2 additional tbsp sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Fill a 9x13 pan about halfway with water and place it on your oven’s lower rack. Bring cream cheese to room temperature. Using a blender or hand blender, beat all cheesecake ingredients just until smooth. (Do not overbeat, as this would introduce air bubbles that would burst in the oven and thus cause cracking.) Smooth into a 9-inch springform pan, either lined with a crust or without. Place on the middle rack above the other pan. Bake 30 minutes, and do not open the oven during this time. When the time is up, leave the oven door closed and turn off the heat. Leave in the closed oven for an additional 5 minutes. Then remove—it will still look underdone—and let cool 20 minutes before placing the still-underdone cheesecake in the refrigerator. It’s important not to put the cheesecake right from the oven to the fridge, because you want it to cool gradually so it doesn’t crack. Chill at least 6 hours, during which time it will firm up to the proper texture. Leftovers covered in the fridge will last around 3-4 days. That is… if you don’t eat it all first!View Cheesecake Nutrition Facts
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Looks delightful!
Have an amazing birthday Katie!
Happy Birthday Katie!! And oh my gosh this looks simply AMAZING!! I was so excited to see no tofu!! 🙂 and no waiting to soak cashews or anything, I am most definitely trying this soon! 🙂
My oh my! This looks astoundingly divine! I have to say that I can’t believe this cheesecake is only 7 ingredients! I’ll try this ASAP–with some chocolate, of course!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Katie! I hope that you had a great one; you deserve it 🙂 I agree with you about cheesecake and sugar. I love cheesecake, but am also very picky. I am sure that this recipe will taste delicious, and I need to add it to my to-make list. I also wanted to say that I love your new website and its features! It is very simple, effective, bright, colorful, and aesthetically pleasing. The rating feature and mobile friendliness are also much appreciated. And to answer your concern, I am not sick of hearing of your amazing cookbook! It is my favorite (and highly used and recommended to others). Keep up the referrals 🙂
Oh my goodness this looks sooo delicious :O I want to make it… I’m not vegan so I wonder if it would work with normal cream cheese and yogurt…
Happy birthday Katie! I hope it’s an especially wonderful day for you!! 🙂
I am going to try this recipe. I’m a diabetic who is also trying to lose weight so watching carbs and calories is important to me. I usually use the largest number of servings in figuring the calories. For example, this recipe says 8 to 12 servings but the nutritional info is for 120 g serving. So I would figure that 1/12th of the recipe is 205 calories and 16.1cabs and 1/8th would be 307calories and 24.2 carbs. Is this correct?
Correct, nutrition facts are for 12 servings.
Hi Katie,
Can I use Greek yogurt? Or does it have to be normal yogurt?
Thank you
She must have accidentally missed your question, but she answered it in another reply to someone with the same question. She tried it with a thick vegan yogurt (I’m guessing like greek yogurt) and it worked.
Looks delicious and so easy to make! 😀
Happy birthday! The cake looks amazing 🙂
I see you used your raw cookie dough crust for this. So it works out to use a no-bake crust but then to bake it with the actual cheesecake filling?
Thanks!
Good question! Yes, it does! 🙂
Frist thing first – Happy birthday and I totally support the cheesecake for breakfast thing.
And then – this cheesecake looks so fluffy! Oh my, I think I would eat it in one sitting, with an excuse that it’s healthy.
This is my newest favorite recipe of yours and I have so many. Cheesecake is my all time favorite thing to eat for dessert. Thanks for making it a healthy choice, too.
This recipe came in my inbox at just the right moment – after I realized that the dessert I had originally planned to take to a potluck was a failure. Quick trip to the grocery store, added some frozen berries for something different, and it was awesome. Thanks for the great timing!
And happy birthday!
Hey,.YUM! Katie you are such a recipe genius:)
A few questions:
1) What type of sweetener did you use for your recipe (since you list several)?
2) Which yogurt did you use? If only dairy is available, would you recommend regular vs. Greek?
3) What did you use for your (pictured) crust?
Thank you!
I’ve tested the recipe with sugar, with xylitol, and with maple syrup… all work! 🙂
The crust is a crust recipe in my cookbook. I didn’t link to it because I don’t want to annoy people by constantly linking to the book. And I’ve tried it with different yogurts as well. It even works with flavored yogurts!