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This Lightened Up Cheesecake is just as luscious without losing an ounce of flavor! It's creamy, and decadent and and refined sugar free!

slice of 'lighter' cheesecake on a plate garnished with fresh strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries, drizzles with strawberry sauce.

You may be wondering why lighten up your cheesecake? Can't you just indulge once in a while? While I'm a firm believer in occasional indulgences--I kind of have a sweet tooth.

Cheesecake for Breakfast?

So in order to indulge more often, I like to take something, such as a dessert, and transform it into a better for you option. Most cheesecakes have 257 calories, 18g fat, 20.4g carbohydrates and 4.4g of protein per slice.

whole cheesecake with strawberry swirl, topped with fresh berries.

My Lightened Up Cheesecake has 118 calories, 3g of fat, 9g carbohydrates and 13g protein per slice. And, just as decadent, I might add. 🙂 You could even put this in the 'healthy' category, which means, you could eat cheesecake for breakfast! (in perfect world?) Another reason for it's lightness is no crust.

Now, that being said, I'm not typically a calorie counter myself, but I am impressed when a dessert has this many nutritional benefits. There's really nothing "bad" for you in this recipe.

The Ultimate Cheesecake

Most cheesecakes are made with cream cheese (yum!) and heavy cream or sour cream, along with some eggs, sugar and starch to hold it all together. I've used Cottage cheese and Greek yogurt in this version, and no refined sugar.

ingredients for a lightened up version of cheesecake: Yogurt, cottage cheese, flour, sugar, lemon, eggs, strawberries, vanilla bean.

To Bathe or not?

Many people wonder if you have to use a water bath to bake a cheesecake. I've also kept this recipe really simple by not using a water bath to bake it. This isn't really a traditional recipe, so I didn't find it necessary in this case, but it's up to you.

The purpose of a water bath is to create an extra creamy texture, and to prevent cracking. If the surface of the cheesecake gets too dry it will crack.

4 picture collage of how to add a strawberry swirl to cheesecake: 1-pour cheesecake batter into springform pan; 2-add drops of strawberry sauce; 3- drag toothpick through the strawberry 'dots'; 4-bake.

All occasion cheesecake

This would be a lovely Easter dessert, or even a Mother's Day treat. Can you imagine serving this to your mom and telling her it's guilt free? What a gift. 😉 But, I plan to eat this on more than just holidays.