I’ve been playing with how to pull off this sugar-free vanilla pudding for a while.
A lot of low carb pudding recipes call for whole fat coconut milk and sometimes chia seeds. While I do like chia pudding now and again, I wanted to achieve the smooth texture of real pudding.
And as much as it’s popular to say fat doesn’t make you fat these days–it’s just not true. Even I believed it for a while. But then I noticed the scale tipping up and up slowly. And I don’t eat any sugar (apart from small amounts of fruit) or refined carbs.
So I didn’t want to fall back on coconut milk for this sugar-free vanilla pudding recipe either. Are you ready for the secret ingredient? Yellow squash!
All you do is slice it up and steam it, puree it and cook it over low heat with some gelatin and almond or hemp milk (if you’re okay with coconut milk, it works too), add vanilla and a little sweetener.
There might be a tinge of reminiscent squash flavour in the finished sugar-free vanilla pudding, but summer squash is so mild anyway that it’s lovely.
And you end up with the closest thing to real vanilla pudding with no starch, no sugar and not as much fat as most alternative puddings.
Sugar-Free Vanilla Pudding
Print RecipeIngredients
- 2 cups of or about 3 medium yellow summer squashes steamed and pureed
- 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk, hemp milk or coconut milk
- 3 tablespoons of alcohol-free vanilla extract
- 2 Truvia packets or 2 tablespoons of Lakanto Monk Fruit Sweetener
- Pinch of cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon of gelatin
- 5 drops of alcohol-free vanilla stevia - optional if it's not quite vanilla or sweet enough for you
Instructions
- Pour the milk into a bowl and evenly sprinkle the gelatin over the surface to not clump up.
- Whisk milk and gelatin to combine and let it sit for 5 minutes.
- Slice and steam the squash until tender, then puree it in a blender.
- Combine pureed squash, vanilla, sweetener and cinnamon in a medium saucepan for 3 minutes over low-medium heat.
- Add the milk and gelatin mixture to the saucepan and whisk until combined.
- Let it all cook for 3 minutes more, but do not let it boil!
- Pour into a glass container with a lid or individual serving dishes and let it set in the fridge for 6 to 8 hours.
