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Nectarine and Toasted Sesame Skyr Bowl with Ginger

Thick nonfat skyr stirred with grated ginger, cinnamon, and lemon, spooned into bowls under sliced nectarines, toasted sesame seeds, ground flaxseed, and a little cracked pepper.

By Camille McLaughlin, RDN, LD, registered dietitian nutritionist

Built forAnti-InflammatoryBreakfast
Also fits High-Fiber High-Protein Low-Added-Sugar
Nectarine slices settle into cold, thick skyr and give up their juice, streaking the white with pink. Grated ginger and a little cracked pepper keep the bowl from reading as dessert, toasted sesame goes over the top in a band you can hear under the spoon, and lemon lifts all of it.
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Why You'll Love This Recipe

I make this on mornings when I want breakfast to be cold and finished before I have decided anything else about the day. Skyr comes out of the tub thick enough to hold a spoon upright, so there is no pan, no waiting, and nothing to watch. The ginger is the part people do not expect. Two tablespoons grated fine into the whole batch turns a plain white bowl into something with a bite at the back of it, and once you have eaten it that way, stone fruit over plain yogurt tastes a little quiet. Fifteen minutes gets you four bowls, and most of that is slicing fruit.

The texture is the whole argument. Skyr is strained hard, so it stays dense under everything you pile on it rather than going soupy once the fruit starts to weep. Nectarines are the right fruit for exactly that reason: they are juicy without being soft, and thin slices hold their edges against something this cold. The sesame and flaxseed go on last, in a thick band rather than a polite sprinkle, so the first spoonful crunches and the fourth one still does. Lemon juice and a quarter teaspoon of pepper sound fussy written down and are not. The acid sharpens the fruit, and the pepper meets the ginger halfway.

This belongs on a weekday, and it works in a jar as easily as a bowl. I stir the ginger, cinnamon, honey, and lemon through the whole tub of skyr at once on a Sunday, then spoon it out across four mornings and cut fruit fresh each time. Nectarines are at their best in late summer, and when they are gone I use ripe plums or a firm pear and the bowl holds up fine. A breakfast this dense eats like a proper meal rather than a stop on the way to one, and the seeds are the part that makes it last.

A wide shallow bowl of very thick white skyr with a fan of thin nectarine slices across one side, a broad band of toasted sesame seeds and ground flaxseed over the middle. Save
Prep: 15 minsCook: 0 minsTotal: 15 minsMakes: 4 servingsServing: about 1 1/2 cups

Ingredients

Serves4Amounts change with the number. The nutrition panel is per serving, so it stays the same.
  • 4 cups plain nonfat skyr (about 2 lb)
  • 3 ripe nectarines, halved, pitted, and sliced thin
  • 1/2 cup toasted sesame seeds
  • 1/2 cup ground flaxseed
  • 2 tbsp finely grated fresh ginger
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1/4 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

Instructions

  1. Season the whole tub of skyr: Tip the skyr into a wide bowl and add the grated ginger, cinnamon, honey, and lemon juice. Stir with a flexible spatula for about thirty seconds, folding from the bottom, until the streaks of honey disappear and the surface turns glossy. It will loosen slightly as you work it, which is what you want. Taste it: the ginger should be present but not sharp.
  2. Give the ginger five minutes: Cover the bowl and leave it on the counter while you cut the fruit. Grated ginger needs a few minutes in contact with the skyr before its heat spreads evenly, and skipping this leaves you with one bowl that tastes hot and three that taste plain. Stir once more before you portion it out.
  3. Slice the nectarines: Cut each nectarine in half along the natural seam, twist the halves apart, and lift out the pit. Lay the halves cut side down and slice them about an eighth of an inch thick, so the pieces drape rather than stand up. Slice them just before serving, since cut stone fruit browns within twenty minutes on the board.
  4. Let the nectarines sit in a little honey and lemon: Put the sliced nectarines in a small bowl with a teaspoon of the honey and a squeeze of the lemon and leave them for 5 minutes while you deal with the seeds. Sugar and acid together pull juice out of stone fruit, so what you spoon over the skyr is not bare slices but fruit sitting in a thin syrup of its own making. It matters most with a nectarine that is nearly ripe rather than perfectly ripe, which is most of the ones any of us buy.
  5. Mix the seed topping: Combine the toasted sesame seeds and the ground flaxseed in a small bowl and stir them together with your fingers. Good toasted sesame smells nutty and looks somewhere between pale gold and light copper. If yours are pale white and smell of nothing, you have untoasted seeds, and the topping will taste dusty.
  6. Build the bowls: Divide the skyr among four wide, shallow bowls and push the back of the spoon through each one to make a shallow trough. Fan the nectarine slices along one side, spoon the seed mixture in a thick band down the middle, and finish each bowl with a grind of black pepper. Serve cold, straight away, while the seeds are still dry on top.
Nutrition Facts
4 servings per recipe
Serving sizeabout 1 1/2 cups
Calories395
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 16g21%
Saturated Fat 2g10%
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 11mg4%
Sodium 121mg5%
Total Carbohydrate 35g13%
Dietary Fiber 9g31%
Total Sugars 22g
Includes 4g Added Sugars 8%
Protein 32g
Vitamin D 0.0mcg0%
Calcium 572mg44%
Iron 4.2mg23%
Potassium 786mg17%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Values are computed from USDA FoodData Central and are estimates. Per serving (about 1 1/2 cups).

Variations

  • Plum and clove: Swap the nectarines for four ripe plums and trade half the cinnamon for a pinch of ground cloves, which makes the bowl darker and more autumnal.
  • Grated pear: Grate a firm pear on the coarse side of a box grater and fold it through the skyr rather than laying it on top, so the whole bowl tastes of fruit.
  • More heat: Double the black pepper and add a second tablespoon of grated ginger for a bowl that reads savory from the first spoonful.
  • Berry version: Crush a cup of raspberries with a fork and ripple them through the seasoned skyr, then keep the nectarines on top for contrast.
  • Jar for the road: Layer the skyr, fruit, and seeds in a wide-mouth jar with the seeds last, seal it, and eat it within a couple of hours so the top stays crisp.

Storage & Leftovers

The seasoned skyr keeps five days in a sealed container in the refrigerator and gets better after the first night, when the ginger and cinnamon have spread all the way through. Stir it before each use, since a little whey rises to the top on day two. Keep it cold and covered so it does not pick up other flavors.

Store the seed mixture separately in a jar at room temperature for up to two weeks. It loses its crunch within an hour of touching anything wet, so the one thing not to do is build the bowls in advance. Two seconds of scattering in the morning is what keeps the top of the bowl worth eating.

Cut nectarines do not hold well, so slice them the morning you want them. If you need to get ahead, toss the slices with a teaspoon of lemon juice and keep them in a closed container for a few hours at most. Frozen sliced peaches, thawed and drained, are the better shortcut when fresh fruit is not around.

Notes & Tips

A few notes from my kitchen, mostly about keeping the skyr thick, the fruit bright, and the seeds crunchy in the right places.
  • Buy the sesame seeds already toasted: The pale untoasted kind taste chalky and never come around. Look for seeds the color of pale gold, sold in the international aisle, and smell the bag before you buy if you can.
  • Grate the ginger on a rasp: A microplane turns ginger into a pulp that disappears into the skyr. Chopped ginger stays in threads, and you will find all of it in one unlucky mouthful.
  • Season the whole batch at once: Stirring honey, lemon, and spice through four cups of skyr in one go is faster than doing it four times, and the flavor spreads more evenly over a day in the refrigerator.
  • Chill your bowls: Five minutes in the freezer keeps the skyr firm under the fruit for the length of a breakfast, which matters more than it sounds like it should.
  • Slice the fruit last: Nectarines brown fast and shed juice on the board. Cut them once the skyr is already portioned and go straight from knife to bowl.
  • Keep the seeds dry until the last second: Scattered on top, they crunch. Stirred in the night before, they turn soft and taste like paste, and the bowl loses the thing that makes it interesting.

Nutrition & Mindful Eating

A cold bowl built for the way weekday mornings actually go, with thick skyr under sliced stone fruit and ginger, lemon, and toasted sesame doing the work that a hot pan usually does.
  • Skyr, nectarine, and the seed topping are each doing a different job in one bowl. The skyr is thick and mild and carries most of the protein and calcium, the nectarine brings juice and sweetness, and the sesame and flaxseed supply the crunch along with fiber and iron.
  • Skyr is strained until most of the whey is gone, which is why a spoonful will stand up on its own, and that same straining is what concentrates its protein and calcium into every bite.
  • Sesame seeds toast to a color between pale gold and copper and taste faintly of halva, and their calcium and iron arrive in a spoonful small enough to scatter across the top of a bowl.
  • Ground flaxseed is soft and nutty and drinks up a little of the fruit juice as it sits, thickening the last few spoonfuls, and it is where the omega-3 fats in this bowl come from.
  • Grated ginger and a small amount of black pepper are what keep this on the savory side of sweet. The ginger stays hot and green tasting because it never meets heat, and the pepper lands late, after the fruit has gone.
  • As you eat, notice how the sesame keeps crackling under the spoon while the nectarine softens against the cold skyr, and let the bowl finish before you decide whether you want anything else.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use Greek yogurt in place of skyr?

Yes, and the bowl still works, though it will sit a little looser and taste milder. Use the thickest plain nonfat Greek yogurt you can find, and if it seems slack, let it drain in a fine sieve for twenty minutes before you season it. Everything else stays the same.

My skyr went watery once the fruit went on. What happened?

Ripe nectarines release a lot of juice, and a warm bowl speeds that up. Chill the bowls for a few minutes before you build them, slice the fruit at the last moment, and lay the slices on top rather than folding them in. Folded fruit turns the whole thing pink and thin within a minute.

Is there a way to make this ahead for the week?

That is how I usually run it. Season the whole tub on Sunday, keep the seed mixture in a jar on the counter, and buy fruit for two or three days at a time. In the morning you are scooping, slicing, and scattering, which takes about three minutes per bowl.

What can I use in place of sesame seeds?

Chopped roasted almonds or shelled pumpkin seeds both give you the crunch, though sesame is what makes the bowl taste the way it does. If sesame is off the table for you, use pumpkin seeds and add a little extra flaxseed, and squeeze a second wedge of lemon over the fruit to keep the top lively.