Skyr: Iceland’s beloved superfood

What do you know about skyr, the deliciously popular Icelandic dairy product?

Icelandic skyr is sometimes referred to as ‘the Icelandic yogurt’. It’s a thick, creamy dairy product that sits somewhere between yogurt and cheese in both texture and tradition. And a quick note to help with pronunciation: the word is pronounced skeer (rhymes with steer).

Made by straining skim milk and cultivating it with specific bacterial cultures, skyr delivers a high‑protein, low‑fat profile that’s been a beloved part of Icelandic cuisine for over a thousand years.

It’s a perfect snack, and like yogurt you can buy it plain (hreint), or in a range of flavors – from salted caramel to berries to licorice. It’s versatile too, used in breakfast bowls, smoothies, and various desserts of course (from skyramisu to skyr cheesecake), but also in savory dips, salad dressings, and sauces – wherever you might use products like sour cream, cream cheese, Greek yogurt, or mayonnaise.

In this article, Dominique Plédel Jónsson, former president of Slow Food in the Nordic Countries, reveals some of the secrets of skyr.

Almost every visitor to Iceland wants to try skyr, and most people like the taste of it. The dairy product has been a part of the Icelandic diet for centuries, and is no less popular among Icelanders today.

It’s high in protein and calcium but low in fat. Traditionally, skyr is served cold with milk or cream, often topped with blueberries and a sprinkling of sugar. It’s also used as an ingredient in milkshakes, smoothies, desserts, and cakes.

It’s not so long ago that skyr was only available at local dairy shops, where it was weighed and packed in parchment. Or it was simply made at home, especially in the countryside.

When dairy shops disappeared in the ’70s, skyr became available at the local grocery store and then at supermarkets in plastic tubs. Fewer and fewer homes made their own skyr as it was easier to pick it up at the store.

Today you can find ‘Icelandic skyr’ in supermarkets around the world – but it’s quite different from the original skyr.

Did you know: Skyr is actually cheese

Once collected, milk spoils quickly, and the most efficient way to store it is to turn it into cheese. In earlier times, cheese (made with natural skyr cultures) was not allowed to firm up entirely. Instead, a certain amount of liquid was left, which was made into a thick, sour skyr – a type of fresh cheese. Why it was done this way is not clear. Further south on the continent, cows and their keepers spent the whole summer roaming mountain pastures and in dairy huts where cheese was made, but in Iceland the summers are much shorter, so perhaps there wasn’t time to let the cheese mature? Or maybe they just found skyr more filling than normal cheese? Or because skyr was easy to preserve? Or any combination of these reasons. This type of cheese wasn’t entirely unheard of elsewhere in Europe, though, where it went under the name quark, faisselle, fromage blanc, or ricotta.

The Icelandic settlers brought the skyr-making tradition with them from Norway, and skyr has remained a key component in Icelandic gastronomy ever since.

The industrialization of skyr

It’s relatively easy to make skyr at home, which is no surprise since it has been made at home for centuries.

Skyr is an acid-set cheese where skyr from a previous batch is used to curdle the next. The whey created from the process was used to preserve meat, as salt wasn’t widely available and the manure used in the smoking process (instead of wood) was in short supply. This type of whey preservation created a class of Icelandic foods called súrmatur or ‘sour food’, which today is eaten at special festivals in the mid-winter season of Þorri.

Skyr-making died out in Norway and the other Nordic countries except for Iceland, most likely because of how isolated and poor the island was at the time. What made skyr unique was that it was made from skim milk instead of cream and carried much of the milk’s protein. And it was made from heritage skyr cultures that had been preserved through the ages by uninterrupted skyr-making.

Milk from cows, goats, and sheep was used depending on what was available on the farm, but at the turn of the 20th century agriculture underwent huge changes and cow’s milk became the dominant supply.

The Icelandic nation has always consistently consumed skyr, but when the supply of manufactured skyr increased, so did consumption, and growth has been steady ever since. The production of skyr also changed during the industrialization, which arose because of, among other factors, high demand.

Cloth straining, as was the practice for centuries, was far too slow for mass production and abandoned in favor of centrifugation and now even ultrafiltration. Bacteria can be difficult to control and sometimes unpredictable, which doesn’t lend itself to the industrial process, so the milk is now pasteurized and then cultures (freeze-dried yogurt cultures) and sometimes rennet are added. There’s no need now for starter skyr (a bit of skyr from the previous batch), as cultures are now made new with every batch and coagulation takes place inside the containers.

Skyr and yogurt look like cousins, but they’re not quite the same thing. Skyr is technically a fresh cheese, made by straining skim milk until it becomes exceptionally thick and high in protein, whereas yogurt is a fermented milk product that usually retains more liquid and has a softer, looser texture.

Skyr is made with much more milk per spoonful – several times more – because it’s strained so thoroughly, which is why it ends up so dense and naturally high in protein. Yogurt, even Greek yogurt, usually retains more whey and therefore has a looser body and a sharper tang. Skyr is also traditionally made with skim milk and specific cultures that give it a mild, clean flavor, whereas yogurt can vary widely depending on fat content and fermentation style.

Skyrland in Selfoss is a relatively new experiential attraction, designed to tell the story of skyr, from Iceland’s first settlers to the 21st-century kitchen table. It’s a part of The Old Dairy in Selfoss, a food hall with good options – an easy pitstop on a journey to Iceland’s south coast.

When in Iceland, you can try all the different versions and varied flavors of this unique, typically Icelandic product, and see which you like best. Skyr is available in every supermarket and food store, in larger tubs or snack-sized, and in drinkable form too. It’s found at all breakfast buffets. And look out for ‘skyr bars’ in food halls and service stations, where you can build a delicious takeaway concoction (a skyr bowl or smoothie) comprising skyr with various additions (fruits, nuts, granola etc).

Around the country you’ll find some small manufacturers who still make skyr the old-fashioned way. Some great farm stores include:

Efstidalur Farm Shop A family-run, child-friendly farm on the Golden Circle route, close to Laugarvatn. The farm offers horse rental, a hotel, and restaurant, ice-cream barn (with view into the cowshed), and a shop selling their own produce including traditionally made skyr.

Erpsstaðir Creamery Another child-friendly farm, this is in West Iceland (25km / 15 miles off Hwy 1 on the way to Búðardalur). Here you can taste the homemade ice cream, sorbet, or old-fashioned skyr. Also try assorted chocolates, various types of cheeses, meat, and more.

Fjóshornið The ‘Cowshed Corner’ in Egilsstaðir (East Iceland) sells produce straight from the farm: homemade skyr and other dairy products, beef, hamburgers, and more. Homemade waffles and cakes are served at the small café.

--

A version of this article was originally published in FÆÐA | FOOD, a magazine-meets-book about Icelandic cuisine, people and culture. For more information, visit icelandicfood.is.