Chia Puddings

A long while back, I did a review on chia seeds (which remains one of my most-viewed posts).  In short, I found these healthy little nuggets to be palatable only in certain instances, but otherwise, the gel-ing was hard for me to eat.

Recently, I learned that cold, gloppy foods like puddings and overnight oats (where you soak oats in milk overnight instead of cooking) were good homes for chia seeds.

First exhibit: pumpkin chia pudding.  I had leftover pumpkin from a recent vegan brownie expedition, so I snacked on the rest of can throughout the week.  Here, I mixed a small 1/3 c of canned pure pumpkin, maybe about 1/4 c hemp milk, and 1 large Tbsp of chia seeds, along with some pumpkin spice and stevia.  After mixing and a few hours in the fridge, I was pleasantly surprised at how delicious this was... literally like pumpkin pudding!  Couldn't even taste the chia or gag at the gel-ing.  In this case, it was GOOD gel-ing!

Next, I tried a recipe from Un Vie Sine.  Cocoa powder and peanut flour went in this one.  Although very fluffy, I didn't like the taste of this at all.  It was kind of bitter and lacked flavor, which I guess I could have solved with some more sweetener?  And also, 3 Tbsp of chia seeds is too much, even for me...

For the dairy intolerant, this use of chia seeds is very welcome. :)  Gotta play around with the combos some more, next time I'm on a health kick.