Dewatering won't take out the nasty vanilla flavor or the added 12 g of sugar. Moreover, some flavored types of yogurt contain cornstarch to add body, rather than the milk content one would like from a milk product. Plain yogurt truly is a different beast that American sugar-yogurt.

True enough, but at least in my shopping cart, the brands that have plain yogurt also have vanilla yogurt that.

When I think ‘American “yogurt”’ I think Dannon or Yoplait, and I can’t recall the last time I saw plain yogurt from them. Google tells me Dannon has plain yogurt in pint containers, but I’ve just never seen them on the West coast. It’s Nancy’s, Stonyfield, etc here. And the problem with those is because they have a small shelf presence, the vanilla and plain yogurt are invariably next to each other. I have brought the wrong thing home several times, and now double check. But I’ve been doing that since before Greek yogurt was a thing here (and only recently discovered the dewatering trick for making Indian food, which I only make a few times a year anyway) so I’ve not had the need to experiment.

I will note as an aside, neither Dannon nor Yoplait are strictly American companies. I don’t think “we” should get the blame for fucking up yogurt, when French and Spanish citizens were, at the very least, accessories to the murder. Thank you very much.

It's the sugar and vanilla flavoring that I find offensive -- are you suggesting that both would be addressed by dewatering? I can imagine it taking care of the sugar (with several washings, I suppose?) since it's water soluble, but I think that the vanilla would be irredeemably dissolved into the milkfat.

Alas, I've gone back to shopping due to these experiences, so I've got a tub of the good stuff already. So on one hand this is all academic, but you've caught my academic curiosity :)

My theory being that drained yogurt has a sharper flavor, it may or may not mask the unwelcome flavors.

I had to double-check. The carb content of the 'water' you drive off (whey) is pretty high. I couldn't say one way or the other how much of the added sugar comes out with the whey, but I suspect a taste test will tell you. If you're stuck at home anyway it's worth a go.

It's good to have an arsenal of substitutions for dishes.

For what it's worth, "hung" vanilla yogurt makes absolutely revolting chicken tikka.

Good to know. Patak’s has an impressive distribution chain out here and I like that it’s shelf stable so I tend to keep one jar of something (usually the tikka) around just in case I get a yearning and we already have rice.

I made some with hung soy yogurt recently, it was ok. Cumin and coriander can cover some tastes but I guess vanilla ain’t one of them.

Dewatering is not going to remove the flavor and sugar in vanilla yogurt.