Thick, delicious, dairy-free pudding? You bet!
It’s quite hard to find store-bought pudding safe for milk allergy, but it’s so easy to make homemade.
Below, see the quick easy recipe and the dirt pudding cups you can make with it, too!
Afraid dairy-free pudding might be impossible? Understandable.
For years, I too was intimidated to try homemade dairy-free pudding from scratch.
But when I finally gave it a shot, it was a complete success and turned out beautifully!
What was I so scared of?
It had just the right thickness and tasted every bit as good as regular pudding.
And you can make it, too!
It’s delicious topped with dairy-free whipped cream.
Then once you’ve mastered your dairy-free pudding…
be sure to check out our dairy-free pudding dirt cups below.
Huge mom points for edible worms and dirt!
Continue on for the pudding recipe.
WHAT DAIRY-FREE MILK FOR MAKING PUDDING
We used to make this recipe with soy milk. It was ok, but we could definitely taste the soy milk.
I’ve made this with almond milk, but that’s a little thin for making thick, creamy pudding.
Coconut milk has been tasty and successful with this recipe.
However, oat milk is our very favorite for this dairy-free pudding. It tastes closest to regular dairy pudding. Here’s our favorite oat milk.
Other dairy-free milks, as long as they are thick, should work, too. We like this pea protein milk and this flax milk.
BEST CONTAINERS FOR HOMEMADE PUDDING
I like to make up individual servings in jars before setting them in the refrigerator.
This recipe makes about 6 servings.
Here are the individual jars I use to cool the pudding in.
My kids love having their own jars of pudding to enjoy and eat.
Now here’s the recipe.
HOMEMADE PUDDING RECIPE DAIRY-FREE
Makes about six 1/2 cup servings. Or you can serve as 4 larger servings.
You can substitute the oat milk with your favorite dairy-free milk, a thicker dairy-free milk works best.
INGREDIENTS
1/4 cup corn starch
1/4 cup water
3 cups original oat milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsweet cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
DIRECTIONS
Mix water and cornstarch together in small cup, to make a thick paste.
Combine rest of the ingredients together in a medium sauce pan.
Start cooking on medium heat and slowly add the cornstarch mixture while whisking continuously.
When the mixture starts boiling, continue stirring and cooking as it thickens for about 3 minutes.
After thickened, remove from heat. Let sit 5-7 minutes.
Carefully spoon into individual bowls or into one large bowl. If using the pudding for dirt cups, feel free to just let it cool in one large bowl. Then you can spoon it into layered cups after it’s fully cooled.
Let cool about about 15 minutes, it will thicken more.
Then cover and put in the refrigerator to cool completely, at least 1 hour.
Hope you love this dairy-free pudding recipe as much as we do!
This was originally posted in July 2011.