Yogurt Lasts for Way Longer Than You Think, According to a Yogurt Sommelier

Plus: 4 pro tips for storing and tasting yogurt.

Kristie Kliegl could accurately be described as the Liam Neeson of the yogurt world. She has a … very particular set of skills acquired over a very long career. But rather than making her a nightmare to people, those skills make her an enormous asset — especially if you love to dig into a cup of Chobani every day.

You see, Kliegl is the director of food safety and quality at Chobani. It's a less-than-glamorous title that is sort of unbefitting for someone with her talents. So, instead, her friends and colleagues refer to her as a "yogurt sommelier."

Kliegl started her career as a lab tech on the night shift, following in the footsteps of her mother, who also worked in the same field. Though it took her mom close to two decades to become a quality control manager, Klegle says she was able to do it in five by hunkering down to learn everything she could about the product.

Related: Make Yogurt at Home With Just Two Ingredients

"While I was on the night shift, I got the opportunity to go through our supervisor training program. It was really great because they taught us a lot about what could affect our product," Kliegl says, noting she'd sit in group meetings where they'd taste anywhere from 300 to 400 cups a day. "At the time, we had a master yogurt sommelier, whose whole job was to train us on the sensory aspects of our yogurt."

This training included finetuning her palate on things like mouthfeel, how the yogurt should look, and how to properly mix fruit at the bottom cups to ensure peak flavors (more on that in a bit).

"We got to do a lot of the first tastings and really dig down into, 'ok, what flavors are we really looking for, what do we think consumers will actually like,'" Kliegl shares.

Related: 21 of Our Favorite Recipes Using Greek-Style Yogurt

As an expert in food sensory and now a full-on yogurt connoisseur, Kliegl understands yogurt better than probably anyone else. She can even pinpoint how long a batch has been off the production line, down to the minute. So, in an effort to improve your yogurt education, we asked her to share some of her top tips to ensure you're savoring this creamy snack in all the right ways.

Tip 1: Dear god, please never turn your yogurt cup sideways.

"You're never supposed to turn a cup sideways,"  Kliegl says. "That's a big taboo here." As Kliegl notes, you should never turn your cup sideways because it "mixes the fruit with the yogurt" and causes the whey to separate and change the flavor profile. When you store your yogurt, make sure to do it right side up in the fridge to preserve the flavors. 

Tip 2: Taste the top of your yogurt first.

"I always suggest tasting your yogurt first," Kliegl says of any fruit at the bottom cups. "To make sure it's got the quality that you want and then tasting it either with your dry ingredients or your fruit. If you are going to taste fruit on bottom, take a little bit of the yogurt, then get a little bit of the fruit, and taste it that way. 

Tip 3: Understand that different cows produce different flavors.

"Yogurt is really subjective to certain flavors. So it all depends on the milk you're getting, the fat content, and where your cows are at," Kliegl shares. Indeed, there's plenty of science to back up this cow-specific claim. "So our New York plant is in a very wet area, and they have a lot more Jersey cows. We have a lot more Holstein cows here, and we're in a very dry place because we're in the high desert of Idaho." And sure, this isn't necessarily a tasting tip, it is a fun party trick for your next yogurt-centric gathering. 

Tip 4: Don't be afraid to eat your yogurt a few days after its best-by date.

Kliegl says you can really taste how yogurt changes in flavor over time. "It doesn't taste as fresh as we would like, so that's really where our shelf life comes from," she says, adding that it's still absolutely safe for you. Though we'd only recommend going a few days past the date, Kliegl says she's gone even longer. "I've eaten yogurt that's a year old. It's absolutely fine. It just doesn't taste as good as you would like it." 

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