Healthful dips make fruit more fun

Maybe you need another idea for packing fiber and vitamins into your child’s lunch. Or maybe you’re looking for a way to convince yourself to eat more fruit. Either way, making a dip (or three) to dunk your fruit in can make it a little more enticing, and a lot more fun.

In constructing a healthful dip for fruit, the main problem lies in the base of the dip. You want something that doesn’t pile on the fat or sugar, but still is interesting enough that you want to dunk your apple wedges and strawberries in it.

We wanted to create a creamy base that could be easily flavored. For obvious reasons, the full-fat versions of cream cheese and sour cream were out. Greek-style yogurt has a great mouth feel and creaminess, but some people find it overwhelmingly tart. So we opted to use low-fat cream cheese blended with nonfat Greek yogurt. The result is creamy and luscious and is a perfect base for flavorings. As a bonus, it’s also a great way to get calcium.

Fruit dippers

For the base:
2 cups nonfat plain Greek-style yogurt
8 ounces low-fat cream cheese

For the chocolate:
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons honey
Pinch cinnamon
2 tablespoons fat-free milk

For the citrus:
Zest of 1/2 lemon
Zest of 1/2 orange
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons orange juice

For the orchard spice:
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon butter rum extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon dry ginger
Pinch ground nutmeg
Pinch ground cloves
2 tablespoons honey

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the yogurt and cream cheese. Process until completely smooth. Divide the mixture into 3 bowls.

To make the chocolate dipper, in a small bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, honey, cinnamon and milk until completely smooth. Add to one of the bowls of the yogurt mixture and stir until smooth.

To make the citrus dipper, stir both zests, the honey and orange juice into one of the remaining bowls of yogurt mixture.

To make the orchard spice dipper, stir the vanilla, butter rum extract, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and honey into the last bowl of yogurt and cream cheese.

Serve the dips with cut up wedges of apples, pears, peaches and berries.

Servings: 10 (each serving represents 2 tablespoons of each dip for a total of 6 tablespoons)

Per serving: 130 calories; 40 calories from fat (29 percent of total calories); 5 g fat (3 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 15 mg cholesterol; 18 g carbohydrate; 6 g protein; 1 g fiber; 105 mg sodium.