Greek Yoghurt with Honey and Walnuts (Giaourti me Meli)
Giaourti me meli is the Greek dish of thick strained yoghurt with honey poured over it in a ribbon, finished with walnuts. Nothing is cooked except the walnuts, briefly, in a dry pan — which is why it goes wrong so often: with three ingredients, there is nowhere for a careless one to hide.
In Greece the bowl sits at both ends of the day. It is breakfast before the heat arrives, and the dessert that appears when a taverna clears the plates — the same three things at different hours. The instinct — aromatic honey against something cold, white and lactic — runs right through Greek eating; its savoury cousin is honey over cheese.
Plate I · IllustrationRecord
Which yoghurt should you use?
Strained and full-fat. Straining — hanging the fresh yoghurt so the whey drains away — is what gives Greek yoghurt its density and its clean lactic sharpness. Both matter: it has to hold its shape under the honey, and its acidity is the counterweight the dish balances on.
On a UK shelf, the wording earns attention. When the label was tested in the English courts — Fage v Chobani, decided in 2013 and upheld in 2014, after an American-made yoghurt was sold here as “Greek” — the judges found that yoghurt sold in Britain as Greek yoghurt had, from the mid-1980s until 2012, been made in Greece and thickened by straining, while “Greek-style” yoghurt was made elsewhere and not necessarily strained, its thickness often owed to added thickeners. The finding was about how the words had actually been used, not a statute. So read the pot: the word you want is “strained”.
Fig. I · Reading the potDiagram
Which yoghurt: strained and full-fat. On a UK shelf, the wording earns attention — these are the two wordings the English courts tested, and what the judges found about each.
Where it was made
How it was thickened
Period the finding covers
The word to read on the pot
A court’s finding about how the words had actually been used — Fage v Chobani, decided in 2013 and upheld in 2014.
Fage UK Ltd v Chobani UK Ltd [2013] EWHC 630 (Ch), High Court · [2014] EWCA Civ 5, Court of Appeal
Nothing to place here. The finding was about how the words had actually been used, not a statute.
So read the pot: the word you want is “strained”. The reason is the dish, not the label — it has to hold its shape under the honey, and its acidity is the counterweight the dish balances on.
Plate II · IllustrationRecord
Which honey should you pour?
A runny one, aromatic enough to survive the yoghurt. Strained yoghurt is cold, dense and sharp, and it flattens a timid honey; a mild blended jar simply disappears. The customary Greek answer is thyme honey: herbal and savoury-edged, it holds its own against the acidity instead of dissolving into it.
A set honey is not wrong, just different: it will not pour to a ribbon, so it goes on in small spoonfuls that sit where they land and give way slowly. The difference is physical state, not quality — our guide to set vs runny honey covers it.
Do the walnuts need toasting?
Yes. Untoasted walnuts taste pale, their skins papery and bitter; a few minutes in a dry pan deepens the flavour and crisps the bite. Two rules follow: let them cool completely, because a warm walnut softens the moment it touches cold yoghurt, and add them last, so they are still crisp when the spoon arrives.
Variations
Sesame instead of walnuts: a teaspoon of toasted sesame seeds per bowl, the same honey-and-sesame pairing as pasteli, scattered loose rather than pressed into a bar. Or add fruit with the season — quartered figs in late summer, orange segments in winter. Keep to one addition.
One note before serving
Honey is not suitable for infants under 12 months: it can contain bacteria that produce toxins in a baby’s intestines, leading to infant botulism, and NHS guidance is to give no honey before one year old. That applies in any dish, this one included.
Plate III · Generated imageRecord
Where THYMELIA stands
THYMELIA is a UK house of Greek foods working two harvests — raw thyme honey from Chania in western Crete, and early-harvest olive oil from the hills above Kalamata — among them the thyme honey this bowl is built around. On Crete the wild thyme flowers from May to July, and the honey is extracted once, as the bloom closes. There is no shop yet, and we name no date for one. How we source is at sourcing, what we will test and publish is at testing, and the research behind Cretan bee products is read closely at evidence.
Recipe · Greek Yoghurt with Honey and Walnuts (Giaourti me Meli)Card
- Prep
- 10 min
- Cook
- 5 min
- Total
- 15 min
- Makes
- Serves 4
Ingredients
- 500 g full-fat strained Greek yoghurt, cold from the fridge
- 80 g runny thyme honey (about 4 tablespoons)
- 60 g walnut halves
Method
- Toast the walnuts
Set a dry frying pan over a medium heat, add the walnut halves and toast for 4–5 minutes, moving them often, until they smell nutty and have darkened a shade. Tip them onto a plate and leave to cool completely.
- Portion the yoghurt
Divide the cold yoghurt between four bowls, spooning it in thick folds rather than smoothing it flat.
- Break the walnuts
Break the cooled walnuts into large pieces with your hands — halves and quarters, not crumbs.
- Pour the honey
Just before serving, pour the honey over each bowl in a slow ribbon, letting it pool in the folds rather than stirring it through.
- Finish and serve
Scatter the walnut pieces over the honey and serve straight away, while the walnuts are still crisp against the cold yoghurt.
Asked, answered.
What is giaourti me meli?
A Greek dish of strained yoghurt with honey poured over it, almost always finished with walnuts. It is eaten at both ends of the day in Greece — as breakfast and as dessert — without changing an ingredient. The dish involves no cooking beyond toasting the walnuts, so everything rests on choosing the yoghurt, the honey and the nuts well.
Is Greek-style yoghurt the same as Greek yoghurt?
Not necessarily. When the labels were tested in the English courts in Fage v Chobani (2013–2014), the judges found that yoghurt sold in Britain as Greek yoghurt had been made in Greece and thickened by straining, while Greek-style yoghurt was made elsewhere and was not necessarily strained, often relying on added thickeners. For this dish, the word to look for on the label is strained.
Which honey works best over yoghurt?
A runny, strongly aromatic one. Strained yoghurt is cold, dense and sharp, and a mild blended honey disappears into it. Greek thyme honey is the customary choice: herbal and savoury-edged, it holds its own against the yoghurt's acidity. A set honey will not pour to a ribbon, but spooned on in small nuggets it gives way slowly against the cold yoghurt — a different texture, not a lesser one.
Should the walnuts be toasted first?
Yes. A few minutes in a dry frying pan over a medium heat deepens the flavour and crisps the bite; untoasted walnuts taste pale and their skins carry a papery bitterness. Let them cool completely before they go anywhere near the bowl — warm nuts soften on contact with cold yoghurt — and add them at the last moment so they stay crisp.
Can babies have yoghurt with honey?
Not with the honey. Honey is not suitable for infants under 12 months: NHS guidance is to give no honey before one year old, because honey can contain bacteria that produce toxins in a baby's intestines, leading to infant botulism. This applies to every honey — runny, set, raw or pasteurised — and to honey stirred into or poured over any dish, including this one.