I never leave the grocery store without a tub of plain yogurt: It’s a key ingredient in many dips, spreads, and baking recipes, and when topped with granola and fresh fruit, makes for an easy breakfast or snack. If you’ve ever stood in front of the wall of yogurt at a grocery store, then you’ll know there are many, many options. The question is: Which plain yogurt is worth buying?

To find the cream of the yogurt crop, our editors sampled 10 different plain whole-milk yogurts you’re likely to find at your local supermarket. (If you notice 11 in the photo below, that's because we cut one of the yogurts we tasted from our rankings because it turned out to be a strained yogurt.) We placed each in unmarked bowls, then sampled them in random order without knowing which yogurt was which. After tasting our way through 10 bowls of plain yogurt, we tabulated the results and crowned an overall winner we’d be happy to enjoy with granola or incorporate into our favorite dips and desserts. We also found an admirable runner up for those who prefer a yogurt made from grass-fed milk.

The Criteria

There are different kinds of yogurt, including strained varieties such as Greek yogurt, Icelandic skyr, and Middle Eastern labneh. For this taste test, we focused on plain, unstrained, whole-milk yogurt. Plain yogurt should be creamy, thick, and smooth without being overly set with thickeners such as pectin or stabilizers. It should be pleasantly tangy, but not sour. It should have the subtle, natural sweetness of milk, but not taste sweetened.

Overall Winner

The Best Nationally Available Plain Yogurt: Dannon Plain Whole Milk Yogurt

Though this yogurt is not quite as tangy as others we tasted, our editors enjoyed its mild tartness and loved its thick, creamy texture.  “Good body,” our associate visuals director, Amanda, noted. Our senior social media editor, Kelli, thought it was “all around good,” while both our editorial director, Daniel, and associate editorial director, Megan, described it as pleasantly smooth. “Creamy, mild, tasty,” Megan wrote. “I like it!”

While some overly sour yogurts may not be great in dips and desserts, this yogurt’s mildness makes it a versatile ingredient that can be used in myriad ways, be it savory or sweet. Use it to prepare frozen yogurt, incorporate it into baked goods, marinate chicken thighs, or just eat it on its own.

Runner Up

The Best Grass-Fed Plain Yogurt: Alexandre Family Farm 100% Grass-Fed A2/A2 Organic Plain Yogurt

“Good milk flavor, has that real mammalian funk,” Daniel wrote. “This is a compliment!” Amanda had lukewarm feelings about the “earthy” flavors of the yogurt, but Megan—who adores plain yogurt and says she eats it every single day—thought it was “extremely mild and cream-forward.” Though this yogurt was slightly thinner than some of the brands we sampled, it is still creamy and has good body. Many dairy cows are fed a total mixed ratio diet, a nutritionally-balanced blend of grains and proteins, resulting in sweet, malty milk. Dairy from grass-fed cows, however, is often described as having a more complex vegetal or barnyard-like flavor. While Daniel, Megan, and I all enjoyed the flavor of this yogurt, Kelli and Amanda did not. Grass-fed dairy may be an acquired taste, but if you want a slightly funky, earthy yogurt, you may enjoy this one.

The Contenders

• 365 Organic Plain Whole Milk Yogurt
• Alexandre Family Farm 100% Grass-Fed A2/A2 Organic Plain Yogurt
• Brown Cow Plain Yogurt
• Dannon Plain Whole Milk Yogurt
• Family Farmstead Plain Whole Milk Yogurt
• Nature’s Promise Organic Whole Milk Yogurt
• Seven Stars Farm Organic Yogurt Plain
• Stonyfield Organic Whole Milk Plain
• Trader Joe's European-Style Organic Plain Whole Milk Yogurt
• Trader Joe's Organic Plain Whole Milk Yogurt
  

In Conclusion

Our editors enjoyed the majority of the plain yogurts we sampled. However, our testers had very different yogurt preferences: While some preferred mild and subtly sweet yogurts, others preferred dairy with more complexity, like those of the grass-fed kind. Most of the yogurts we sampled have just two ingredients: pasteurized milk and live cultures. Some yogurts, however, contain pectin, an ingredient that’s often used to thicken yogurt. In our tests, our editors preferred yogurts that had been naturally thickened during the fermentation process: When bacterial cultures convert the milk’s lactose sugars into lactic acids, it thickens and sours it simultaneously. Both our winners contain just pasteurized milk and live cultures, have just the right amount of tang, and are smooth and creamy. 

Our Testing Methodology

All taste tests are conducted with brands completely hidden and without discussion. Tasters taste samples in random order. For example, taster A may taste sample one first, while taster B will taste sample six first. This is to prevent palate fatigue from unfairly giving any one sample an advantage. Tasters are asked to fill out tasting sheets ranking the samples for various criteria. All data is tabulated and results are calculated with no editorial input in order to give us the most impartial representation possible.

A long career in the food service industry has acquainted me with all kinds of ways to sharpen knives. As a young culinary student, I would run my knives through a pull-through sharpener. When I began to look for an even better edge, I brought my knife to Sur La Table to take advantage of its in-house sharpening services. Once I started working in serious kitchens, older cooks side-eyed this practice. They explained that mechanical grindstones and inexperienced retail assistants can remove too much metal from your knife when sharpening, dramatically shortening its life. Serious pros use whetstones to sharpen their knives, and eventually, I only wanted to use them on my precious and expensive work tools. That said, while whetstones are effective, they're time-consuming and come with learning curves.

Recently, I read about a new trend in knife sharpening: rolling sharpeners. These, like the Horl 3 Cruise I tested, couple magnetic, angled blocks with rolling, textured cylinders. Your knife snaps onto the block to be held at just the right angle (either 15 or 20 degrees) while the cylinder rolls along the sharp edge to sharpen. After finishing one side, you flip the knife to do the other. Pretty simple, right? I tested a popular rolling knife sharpener to find out.

The Tests

• Stainless Steel Knife Test: To start, I chose one of my older knives to experiment with the Horl 3. For me, it’s the Zwilling Bob Kramer Damascus. It’s made of stainless steel and takes a long time to resharpen. I pulled it out, dusted it off, and marked the edge with a Sharpie to see how much the Horl would take off. I put it to the Edge-on-Up Professional Edge Tester to test its existing sharpness, then put in some serious work on the Horl before re-testing its sharpness.
• Odd-Size Knife Test: Next, I wanted to see if the Horl could work for an irregularly shaped knife like a meat cleaver. Again, I used the edge tester, sharpened the cleaver, and then tested its edge again.
• Carbon Steel Knife Test: Finally, I grabbed a softer carbon steel knife to see how the Horl could perform on a different material. I used the edge tester before and after to determine the results.

What We Learned

Rolling Sharpeners Leave the Training Wheels On

People have used whetstones to sharpen knives for centuries, and the design hasn’t changed much. You hold your knife at an angle and run it across a textured stone to remove some material and refine the edge to a point. Repeat on the other side, and you get a sharp edge. Electric sharpeners were invented to save time and decrease the amount of skill needed to complete this task: Rotating textured wheels or belts spin around an angled valley the user drags the blade of the knife through.

Rolling sharpeners combine elements of both methods. Instead of using an angle guide or relying on feel, the rolling sharpener has a magnetized block that snaps onto your knife to hold it edge-side-up at the proper angle. A coarse, textured cylinder rolls next to the blade and along its edge to refine it. In theory, this process reduces the amount of skill needed to maintain the proper angle while sharpening and doesn’t take off as much material as an electric or pull-through sharpener.

The Rolling Sharpener Sharpened Well—But With Limitations

After about 10 minutes of sharpening my Kramer blade (roughly 100 passes on each side of the blade), the Horl made significant progress. To start, this knife registered at 1044 on the edge tester. The manual for the tester recommends a professional regrind for any blade scoring above 1200. After using the Horl, I was able to get the sharpness down to 600, or a “moderately rolled edge.” Because the Kramer has chips along the blade, I would need to continue far beyond just getting the edge sharp to get a completely straight blade. Ordinarily, I could use a whetstone with a coarser grit to make shorter work of this process. The Horl only comes with one grit grade plus another side for honing. Whetstones come in a wide variety of grits and textures designed to pair with whatever results you are looking for. Essentially, trying to remove chips from a stainless steel knife using the Horl is akin to chopping down a tree with a serrated knife. Sure, it can do it…eventually. But you could make more progress with a better tool.

That being said, I was able to finally remove the chips with enough elbow grease and time. By the end, I had managed to get the sharpness to 239, as sharp as a double-edged razor blade and most high-end cutlery out of the box. Consider me a happy camper, as it can cost as much as $40 to get it repaired by a professional just once and the Horl can be used again and again.

Save Your Odd-Size Cutlery For A Whetstone

While you can sharpen almost any kind of knife on a whetstone, the Horl is limited by the shape and size of the rolling component. A larger cleaver is too wide to make contact with the textured surface of the sharpener without requiring you to jury-rig some kind of elevated surface on one side. Paring knives were a non-issue and carbon steel knives with typical bevels (double, 15 or 20 degrees) sharpened just fine. 

The Verdict

If you want to be a bit more serious about the long-term care of your knives but are too intimidated to delve into mastering a whetstone, the Horl (and rolling sharpeners like it) offers a clever solution. Understand that this kind of sharpener will never be able to do what a full assortment of whetstones can, but maybe that’s not what you want anyway. Quick, effective sharpening will give you a much more enjoyable user experience when slicing and cutting, and that’s what the Horl delivers.

The Pros

I enjoyed using the Horl 3 Cruise and will admit that it's easier than a whetstone. The Horl does not need to be soaked before use and makes no mess. It’s compact and portable. While it’s not quite as intuitive as a pull-through sharpener, I was still able to get my non-culinary sister to sharpen her dull knives to a satisfactory edge without a lengthy instruction period. Maintaining the correct angle is virtually foolproof with the heavy-duty magnet, which did not release the knife during sharpening at all no matter how much pressure I exerted.

The Cons

The Horl is not as versatile as a set of whetstones would be. It only has one type of grit coarseness and two angle settings, though Horl is releasing a model later this year with more options and exchangeable grinding disks. With a whetstone, the choices for angle are essentially limitless and you are free to customize your edge the way you want. That is still going to be the best possible option for knife nerds.

Key Specs

• Grinding material: Diamond
• Weight: 1 pound
• Grinding angles: 15 and 20 degrees

Why We're the Experts

• Taylor Murray has been working in food and food media for over 10 years, including at award-winning restaurants. 
• She has tested numerous items for Serious Eats, including tagines and deep-dish pizza pans.
• For this review, Taylor sharpened a variety of knives using the Horl 3 Cruise. She tested the edge before and after sharpening using a professional edge tester.
  

Pistachio cream has been my love language for at least the past year now, ever since the Dubai chocolate bar first graced my feed. To appreciate this, you do not necessarily need to be familiar with the Dubai chocolate bar, but some backstory does help. A few years ago, Sarah Hamouda, the founder of Fix Dessert Chocolatier in Dubai, created a new confection—a mixture of pistachio cream and toasted kataifi (very fine strands of pastry formed by drizzling a batter onto a cooking surface) encased in a luxurious bar of dark chocolate. It became a sensation after an ASMR-style TikTok video of the dessert went viral and inspired content creators worldwide to make their own versions. Today, you can even buy DIY kits as well as copycat Dubai chocolate bars for an exorbitant price at corner stores in New York City. 

The trend also sparked countless riffs online, leading to a surge in interest in pistachio cream, and it's well on its way to becoming the new Nutella. I've shared my favorite ways to use it (I've recently been putting it in a luscious, white hot chocolate), and our Birmingham-based team has even turned it into a tart. I've been calling my latest (and probably not last) riff Dubai chocolate triangles. They're a phyllo-wrapped pastries with a filling of pistachio cream, tahini, pistachios, and toasted kataifi, baked until golden, dipped in chocolate, and finished with a sprinkle of roasted pistachios.

For a Better Crunch, Use Dried Kataifi 

While similar to phyllo dough, kataifi is not exactly the same. Kataifi is made from a liquid batter that's drizzled and cooked into very thin strands similar to vermicelli noodles. Since the Dubai chocolate bar trend began, it has become readily available online in dried form. It's more challenging to find in stores; you'll likely need to stop at a Middle Eastern grocery store, where you are more likely to find it frozen rather than dried. The dried version is a little easier to work with, and I noticed it gets crispier than the frozen kataifi, which is a good thing in this context. Whether you're buying it dried or frozen, kataifi comes in reasonably large quantities, so use the rest to make kanafeh or toast some up in butter and sprinkle it on your salads, pasta, or eggs.

Work Quickly to Avoid Cracked Phyllo 

Phyllo is easy to find in most grocery stores, usually right next to the frozen puff pastry. It is, however, a little challenging to work with because it tends to dry out very quickly once unfolded and exposed to air. Covering it with a towel can help keep it moist, but cooks often debate whether you should use a dry or damp towel to do this.

A damp towel traps moisture better but may cause your phyllo sheets to stick together, while a dry one may not retain enough moisture to prevent them from cracking. I've tried it both ways and choose to use a damp towel—not a sopping wet towel, but one with the slightest hint of moisture. If your towel is too wet, you may well end up with stuck-together sheets. Fortunately, most boxes of phyllo have 40 sheets, so you will still have more than enough even if there are a few setbacks. 

Unless you are a phyllo expert, there will be some cracks and breakage along the way, but fret not: Little cracks and tears will hardly be noticeable in your final product, and you'll have enough sheets in the package to keep going even if some crack beyond repair. The best move is to make a pile of discards and toast them up later; toasted shards of phyllo are very tasty, and like the kataifi, they make a nice topping for plenty of other dishes.  

Get Pre-Roasted, Shelled Pistachios 

Yes, you can shell and toast your own nuts, but not only is that a lot of work, but there's also a fine line between perfectly roasted and burnt. The shelled and roasted pistachios save you time while delivering a more consistently roasted result. As a bonus, pre-toasted pistachios generally have a brighter green color, which makes your triangles more visually appealing. It's not always easy to find roasted and unsalted pistachios, so if you're using salted pistachios, omit the salt from the recipe.

Taste Your Pistachio Cream

I can't stress enough, please taste your pistachio cream before using it for this or any recipe. Many different brands are available now, and while most of them are tasty, they can vary a lot in flavor and sweetness. While I love Pistacchiosa, for example, it is saltier than most. Other brands are super sweet.

The recipe below can't account for such a wide range of pistachio products on the market, so please taste and adjust accordingly! Omit the salt if your pistachio cream tastes salty, and consider using an even more bittersweet chocolate if your pistachio cream is extremely sweet to balance it out.

For a Shinier Ganache, Add Corn Syrup

While it's optional in this recipe, pastry chefs love using corn syrup for the glossy finish it gives chocolate. It also helps keep the ganache fluid, making it easier to dip your triangles and giving you a little extra time to sprinkle on the pistachios before the chocolate sets. Its benefits are mostly aesthetic, though, so if you don't bake often and don't have corn syrup on hand, feel free to skip it—your triangles will still be beautiful.

If Your Chocolate Breaks, Just Add Cream

Tempering chocolate is an art; a few degrees can be the difference between chocolate glory and disaster. When I was developing this recipe, our senior editor and former restaurant pastry chef, Genevieve, shared a trick with me: As you're melting the chocolate, add more cream and keep stirring if it starts to seize or look grainy. There needs to be enough liquid to coat the chocolate's cocoa particles, but, as she explains in her fabulous water ganache recipe, the darker the chocolate, the more cocoa particles, and the more liquid you'll need to keep it fluid.

For the Filling: In a small skillet, melt butter over medium heat until foamy, about 2 minutes. Add kataifi pastry and cook, stirring often and breaking up clumps with a wooden spoon, until browned, about 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl and let rest at room temperature until cooled, about 15 minutes

Add pistachios to kataifi bowl along with pistachio cream, tahini, and salt. Using a flexible spatula, gently fold to combine; set aside.

To Assemble and Cook: Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Line a 13- by 18-inch rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. Unroll the phyllo sheets and, using a sharp knife or pizza wheel, cut dough into 6- by 11-inch strips. Cover phyllo strips with a lightly damp kitchen towel until ready to use to prevent them from drying out.

Place one phyllo strip on a clean work surface with the short side facing you. Brush entire strip with melted butter. Fold it in half lengthwise like a book, bringing the left edge to meet the right edge, to create a strip that is 3 by 11 inches. Brush again with butter. Place a heaping tablespoon of filling (about 20g) about 1 inch from the bottom of the strip towards the right side. Fold the left bottom corner of the phyllo strip over filling to tightly enclose and form a triangle. Continue folding the triangle, flipping right and then left until you reach the end of the strip. Use a sharp knife or kitchen scissors to trim any excess phyllo pastry.

Place folded triangle seam-side down on prepared baking sheet and cover loosely with another damp kitchen towel until ready to bake. Repeat with remaining phyllo strips and filling, arranging each pastry on the baking sheet about 1 inch apart.

Bake, rotating baking sheet front to back halfway through, until lightly golden and crisp, 18 to 20 minutes. Let the triangles cool completely.

For the Ganache: Place chocolate in a medium heatproof measuring cup or mug. In a small saucepan, stir together heavy cream and corn syrup, if using, and bring to a simmer over medium heat, about 4 minutes. Pour over chocolate and let stand until chocolate softens, about 1 minute, then stir until smooth. Cool chocolate mixture until warm but still pourable (100 to 105ºF; 38 to 40ºC), about 3 minutes.

Holding triangles by one corner, carefully dip half the pastry in chocolate to coat, letting any excess chocolate drip back into the cup before returning pastry to baking sheet. Sprinkle chocolate with chopped pistachios before it sets.

Repeat with remaining triangles. Refrigerate until set, about 10 minutes.

Special Equipment

Sharp knife, pizza wheel, or kitchen scissors, 9-by-13-inch rimmed baking sheet, ruler, instant-read thermometer

Notes

You can easily find dried kataifi online and frozen kataifi at many Mediterranean and Middle Eastern markets, often in the frozen pastry aisle.

Salads follow food trend cycles like nearly every other food category. Do you remember that there was a time before Americans regularly ate kale salads? Now they're everywhere. Today, if I were to make a spreadsheet of the best restaurant salads (yes, I have been known to make this sort of spreadsheet), many would have an ingredient more typically associated with fried foods and casseroles: breadcrumbs. And this is a trend I'm definitely on board with.

My all-time favorite salad is a Caesar salad, yet I can't even recall the last time I saw a crouton on a Caesar at a New York City restaurant. Where have all the croutons gone? Apparently, they've gone into the food processor and come out as delightfully crunchy breadcrumbs. In Brooklyn, where I live, this trend is just as common at Michelin-starred restaurants like Lilia as it is at wine bars like The Fly—one of my favorites—or even my local sit-down pizzeria, Speedy Romeo. And honestly, it’s genius.

How many dull salad knives have I taken to unyielding, brittle croutons that have crumbled or slipped right off my plate and onto the floor? Using breadcrumbs instead of croutons solves that problem. Plus, freshly toasted breadcrumbs add another layer of flavor and texture to every bite without distracting from the star of the salad—the lettuce and/or vegetables. Many restaurants have opted to do away with croutons entirely, so why shouldn't you do the same at home? Instead of saving your day-old bread or buying fresh bread to make homemade croutons, use the breadcrumbs you probably already have in your pantry.

The Best Breadcrumbs For Salad Are the Ones You Have

Which breadcrumbs should you use to spruce up your salad? Any kind! As long as you toast them in butter or oil. Yes, you can still opt to make the breadcrumbs yourself by putting hearty, stale bread in a food processor as Kenji does in his spring vegetable salad, but for an even quicker salad topper, use store-bought plain breadcrumbs and season them at home. These Caesar breadcrumbs and the pickle juice–scented breadcrumbs from our version of the TikTok-famous fried pickle dip, are two flavorful options. But if you've already gone out of your way to make a homemade Caesar dressing for a classic Caesar salad, don't mess with perfection—plain toasted panko breadcrumbs will do just fine. Simply combine a tablespoon of butter or oil with a quarter cup of breadcrumbs and toast in a pan over low heat until golden brown, then season with salt and pepper. 

The next time you're at the grocery store to buy all your salad components, re-up your breadcrumbs supply. This easy ingredient swap will jazz up your home salads and open a world of crunchy possibilities.