Chocolate Chia Seed Pudding Recipe: 2 Ways
If you read my June Everyday Edit, you may remember the chocolate chia seed pudding I had recently started making.
Ethan certainly remembers it.
In fact, my 18-year-old son appears to have interpreted “I made six jars of chocolate chia pudding for the week” as “I prepared six conveniently portioned snacks exclusively for Ethan.” I cannot keep them in the house. I make a batch, put them in the fridge and briefly admire how organized I am. Then I open the fridge the next morning, and they have disappeared.
The recipe received so much attention on social media that I decided it deserved its own permanent home in the Food section of my website. This way, it will be easy for you to find again, and slightly easier for me to keep track of than the actual pudding itself.
I’m also sharing a new chocolate banana peanut butter version, which I believe is even better than the original, if that is possible. Apparently it is.
The Pudding David Couldn’t Get His Hands On
For weeks, my husband David had never tried one.
David is retired. He is home quite a lot. He has unrestricted access to the kitchen and knows how to operate the refrigerator. Yet every time he went to get a pudding, Ethan had already eaten them all (I may have had one or two myself).
It was beginning to feel statistically improbable.
Eventually, I had to put one aside specifically for David, which is the sort of food-management system I least expected to require when our children became adults.
Ethan continues to eat them directly from the jar, with no toppings and no ceremony whatsoever. However, he is enthusiastically consuming chia seeds, Greek yogurt and extra protein, so I’m choosing to see this as a parenting victory. A parenting victory that requires me to make a batch approximately every second day, but a victory nonetheless.
Why This Chocolate Chia Seed Pudding Is So Good
This recipe checks all of my favourite boxes: it is quick, filling, nutritious, easy to make, and does not require turning on the oven or stove.
The base is a high-protein chocolate soy beverage blended with plain Greek yogurt, cocoa powder, dates, maple syrup and a little sea salt. I use Silk Chocolate High Protein Beverage, which contains 18 grams of protein per 250 mL serving. If you want to use another type of milk, go ahead and add a scoop of chocolate protein powder to keep the protein content high.
The dates add natural sweetness and fibre, while the pinch of salt makes the chocolate flavour noticeably better. I don’t entirely understand why salt makes sweet things taste sweeter and chocolate taste more chocolatey, but it does, and I am happy to accept this without launching a formal investigation.
Blending the mixture until completely smooth also seems to whip plenty of air into it. Once the chia seeds have soaked overnight, the finished pudding has a lovely, light, almost mousse-like consistency rather than the stodgy texture you might expect from something containing chia seeds.
It tastes like dessert. It behaves like breakfast. Everybody wins, assuming they manage to get one.
Easy Chocolate Chia Seed Pudding Recipe
Prep time: 10 minutes
Chill time: Overnight
Servings: 6 small jars with lids
Course: Breakfast or snack
Ingredients
- 1½ cups Silk High Protein Soy Beverage (or your milk of choice)
- 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
- ¼ cup chia seeds
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
- ⅔ cup pitted dates
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup, or to taste
- Pinch of sea salt
- Dash of cinnamon (optional, but adds extra flavour)
- ½ tsp vanilla extract (optional, but adds extra flavour)
Instructions
- Add the milk, Greek yogurt, cocoa powder, dates, maple syrup, sea salt and cinnamon to a full-size blender.
- Blend until the mixture is completely smooth and the dates have been fully pulverized.
- Add the chia seeds and stir them in by hand. Do not blend the chia seeds; you want to leave them whole.
- Divide the mixture among six small glass mason jars and add the lids.
- Refrigerate overnight to allow the chia seeds to absorb the liquid and thicken the pudding.
- Eat plain, or add your preferred toppings.
The puddings will keep in the refrigerator for three to four days, theoretically.
A Word About the Blender
You all know how much I love my Magic Bullet. I use it constantly and would never speak ill of it without good reason.
Unfortunately, it is not quite powerful enough to completely pulverize the dates in this recipe unless I chop them into very small pieces first. This introduces an extra step, and the whole point of this recipe is to be minimal effort.
With my Ninja Blender, I literally chuck everything in, turn it on and let it go. The dates disappear completely and the mixture becomes beautifully smooth and airy.
You can certainly use a smaller personal blender, but chop the dates well or prepare to discover the occasional chewy date fragment in your otherwise chocolate mousse experience.
The Chocolate Banana Peanut Butter Version
The banana peanut butter version was created because I had an overly ripe banana sitting on my counter.
You know the stage: too soft to eat normally, too far gone to return to the fruit bowl, but not yet so alarming that throwing it away feels fully justified.
I was already planning to make a batch of chocolate chia seed pudding, so I decided to throw the banana into the blender. Then I remembered I had peanut butter powder in the pantry and added a spoonful of that too.
Chocolate, banana and peanut butter. Who doesn’t love that combination?
The result was so good that it immediately replaced the original as my favourite. It is creamy, chocolatey, lightly peanut buttery and tastes remarkably like something that should arrive with whipped cream on top.
To make it, simply add the following to the original recipe:
- 1 very ripe banana
- 1 tablespoon peanut butter powder
Everything else, including the maple syrup, stays exactly the same.
Can You Use Regular Peanut Butter?
Absolutely. Use whichever kind of peanut butter you like, or happen to have in the house.
I use peanut butter powder because it is lower in calories than regular peanut butter, keeps easily in the pantry and blends beautifully into the pudding. It is also surprisingly versatile: you can add it to smoothies, oatmeal, yogurt, sauces and other recipes that call for peanut butter flavour.
Regular peanut butter will work too. Add a spoonful, blend it well and carry on with your life.
My Favourite Toppings
I usually top my chocolate chia seed pudding with:
- Unsweetened coconut flakes
- Sliced almonds
- Chopped strawberries
- Raspberries
- Banana slices
- Cacao nibs or a few chocolate chips
Ethan prefers no toppings at all, presumably because toppings take extra effort and might slow him down.
Both versions are delicious straight from the jar and make an easy grab-and-go breakfast, afternoon snack or healthier dessert. The small jars also create the illusion that you have completed some highly advanced meal preparation, when in reality you spent approximately 10 minutes throwing ingredients into a blender.
Which Version Should You Make First?
The original chocolate chia seed pudding is creamy, chocolatey and ridiculously easy to prepare.
The chocolate banana peanut butter version is all of those things, plus banana and peanut butter, and is (in my opinion) even better! I didn’t think the original needed improving, but neither did the banana on my counter, and look how that turned out.
My advice is to make both.
Then hide at least one jar somewhere Ethan would never think to look. Behind the vegetables should do it.
Which one are you trying first: classic chocolate chia seed pudding, or the chocolate banana peanut butter one? Let me know in the comments.
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