Chocolate Chia Pudding
272 Comments
Sep 06, 2023
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Chocolate chia pudding is so simple and amazingly delicious. It’s the easiest healthy dessert recipe you can make with no baking. It’s creamy, chocolatey, indulgent and yet, loaded with nutrients. A winner of a dessert recipe that you’ll make again and again.
I almost hesitate at calling this chocolate chia pudding a dessert or labeling it as indulgent, because really, it’s probably healthier than the average breakfast or snack. There’s just one tablespoon of maple syrup per serving. So feel free to enjoy it any time of day!
But want to know why I really love this recipe? It’s so darn easy to make and you probably have all of the ingredients in your kitchen already. Long story short, you really can’t beat chia pudding, whether you’re whipping it up for breakfast or dessert!
What’s in Chocolate Chia Pudding?
There’s only 5 ingredients in this easy recipe and that includes:
- Cacao Powder: Cacao powder is typically less processed than cocoa powder, but either one works in this recipe.
- Maple Syrup: One of my favorite all natural sweeteners. You could also use honey or another liquid sweetener.
- Vanilla Extract: To enhance the sweet flavor.
- Milk: Choose your favorite one, whether dairy or dairy-free, they all work beautifully.
- Chia Seeds: The omega-3 packed seeds that combine everything together into a creamy, dreamy dessert.
How to Make Chocolate Chia Pudding
All you have to do is whisk together the cacao powder, maple syrup, vanilla extract, nut milk and chia seeds. Chill it for a few hours (or overnight). And voila – chocolate chia pudding. I’ve topped mine with raspberries and chocolate shavings today, but feel free to get creative.
Pro tip: If you don’t like the tapioca consistency of chia pudding and want a smoother texture, you can blitz it all together in a high-powered blender to create a chocolate chia pudding mousse.
Are Chia Seeds Healthy?
They sure are! Chia seeds have a ton of health benefits. They’re on my list of 8 anti-inflammatory foods to eat every week since they’re so high in antioxidants and loaded with fiber. In fact, they may be the best source of fiber on the planet.
What Kind of Milk Can I Use in Chia Seed Pudding?
This chocolate chia seed pudding will work with all types of dairy and dairy-free milks. Today, I’m using my cashew milk recipe (my personal favorite). But you could also use almond milk, oat milk, or even banana milk.
If you make this recipe with canned full-fat coconut milk, it will likely be thicker than the previously mentioned options. You could always add more milk or water to thin it down, if desired.
How Long Will the Pudding Last?
Chocolate chia pudding can be left in the fridge for about 4 to 5 days. This makes it an easy treat to make in a large batch and enjoy over the course of a week.
If you have leftovers you can even freeze it! It will last for up to 3 months in the freezer. Then simply thaw as needed when those chocolate cravings strike. Meal prepped chia pudding for dessert? Oh yes. You’re welcome!
More Delicious Chia Seed Recipes
Here’s more chia seed recipes you’ll love as well:
- PB&J Chia Pudding
- Chia Seed Jam
- Coconut Chia Mango Popsicles
- Blueberry Chia Pudding
- Pomegranate Chia Parfait
Want two more simple chocolate dessert recipes? Make sure to check out my Chocolate Mug Cake and Chocolate Avocado Pudding. They take less than 5 minutes to make!
I hope you enjoy this chocolate chia pudding as much as I do! If you make it, let me know how it turned out in the comment box below. Your review will help others in this community!
Chocolate Chia Seed Pudding
Description
Video
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons cacao powder
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup milk (dairy or dairy-free)
- ¼ cup chia seeds
Garnish
- raspberries (or other fruit)
- chocolate shavings
- coconut whipped cream
- nuts and seeds
Instructions
- In a medium-size bowl, add the cacao powder, maple syrup, vanilla extract, dairy-free milk and chia seeds. Whisk together until all ingredients are combined.
- Leave the mixture in the bowl for 15 minutes without stirring for the chia seeds to gel. After 15 minutes, whisk it together one more time. Cover the bowl and place it in the refrigerator overnight or a minimum of 4 hours.
- Remove the chocolate chia seed pudding from the fridge and stir together with a spoon. Serve into small dessert sized glasses. Top with your favorite fruit, chocolate shavings or other garnishes.
Lisa’s Tips
- If you notice your chia seeds aren’t starting to gel and thicken after 10 minutes, you may have dud chia seeds. This can happen in they’ve been sitting in your pantry a while. Just grab a new bag of chia seeds.
- If you want that frosted look on your berries, here’s how you do it. In a single layer on a plate, freeze fresh berries that have been washed and are completely dry. Once they’re frozen, add them to the chocolate chia pudding. About 2 to 3 minutes later (as they come to room temperature) they’ll have that frosted look. But serve them up quick because it doesn’t last long!
Nutrition
©Downshiftology. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited.
Recipe originally posted May 2019, but updated to include new information.
I didn’t really measure and I put a little mocha creamer in it but mine tasted exactly like chocolate cake mix. Soooo good. I ate it for breakfast and have another batch in the fridge now. I am in awe over this recipe. Thank you so much.
Hi April – Happy to hear you love this chocolate chia pudding!
Hi,
I mistakenly bought ground white chia seeds instead of whole.
Will I still use 1/4 cup?
Thanks
Thank you for all of your fantastic recipes! I am going to make this chia seed pudding today for the first time and would like to add hemp hearts, but I am unsure about the hemp:chia ratio and if I will need to add extra liquid. Alternatively, should I just use the hemp hearts as a garnish?
Lisa, thank you for all of your recipes, & video tutorials. I appreciate all of your work. My kids just love this recipe, (& every other recipe of yours). We use your recipe for hemp milk first, & then use that milk for the pudding. I use a hand held immersion blender to make our hemp milk & skip straining any fragments out. It’s beautiful milk left in that stage. I also use the hand-held immersion blender twice to mix the chia pudding, letting it rest once as you do in-between. This speeds up the wait time for the pudding- it’s almost ready immediately! Sending you a great big hug! Thank you Lisa. ❤️
I’m so glad you and your kiddos love this chocolate chia pudding, especially with my homemade hemp milk!
Hi
Can I use cocoa powder instead of cacao?
Thanks 😊
Yep, that’s fine!
This chocolate chia pudding is a wonderful dessert or snack. It is the perfect healthy way to crush your sweet craving. A total winner. I meal prep them and freeze them. Easy to thaw out and then add my topping of choice, to those who haven’t tried it, please do. You will be amazed. Thank you, Lisa, for all your recipes and knowledge of meal prep and sticking to a healthy diet.
It’s always a good idea to keep a batch of this chocolate chia pudding in your fridge for when you need a healthy treat!
Made it for dessert, tasted it before it went into the fridge and it’s so delicious!!!
Thank you Lisa for yet another easy and amazing healthy recipe.
I always sneak a little bit before storing it away as well. ;) Enjoy!
One of my favorite healthy ways to satisfy a chocolate craving! I usually simply top it with whipped cream
A simple whipped cream topping is all you need! Happy to hear you’re loving this chocolate chia pudding, Sarah.
I made this last night bc I was craving chocolate and it definitely satisfied the craving. I chose the blended option this time to see what it was like and I think I may like the whole chia seed version better – but, it was a fun option to try. Thanks for the recipe!
I personally prefer the whole chia seed version as well, but it’s great to have options. :)
Delicious chocolate pudding! We enjoyed it.
Wonderful!
Just had chia pudding. It was excellent.
Glad you enjoyed this chia pudding, Pat!
Easy & tasty, I added walnuts & strawberries when it was ready to eat. Love this pudding!
Glad you enjoyed this chia pudding, Donna!
This is beautiful. Amazing mousse like texture. I did 1 tbs cacao nibs and 1 tbs cacao powder, 1 tbs monk fruit sweetener. Love this stuff.
Glad you’re loving this chocolate chia pudding Karly!
This is the best chocolate chia seed pudding recipe, I have also substituted the maple syrup for coconut sugar and it worked fabulously too 😁 I also add a pinch of salt as this intensifies the flavour.
So happy you loved it, Mandie!
a classic ;)
Hi, this nutritional information of 192 calories is way off!
I just added it into my fitness pal (without toppings) and it came to 477 calories for the 1 portions.
1/4 cup of chai seeds is 224 calories and 14.5g of fat on its own.
The nutrition info is per serving, and this recipe has two servings. It also depends on what type of milk you use.
I 4X the recipe. Used 1.5 cups of coconut milk and finished filling my 4 cup measuring, with Oatmilk.
Added 2/3 cup of cacao 1/4 cup brown sugar swerve and powdered sugar swerve. 1 pinch of salt. & the vanilla.
I ground 1/4cup of the chia seed, which measured 1/2cup once it was ground so then added 1/2cup chia seed. (If you grind the chia seeds you have to be aware that the ground ones cause the pudding to thicken faster, I made the pudding previously with only ground chia it became too gelatinous).
Can you use ground flax seeds instead of the chia seeds
I haven’t personally tried it yet with only flax seeds, but I believe others have tried it with success.
For smooth pudding do you blend when you add it the ingredients together or after it has sat?
You can blend right away! I have a chocolate chia pudding mousse recipe you can follow on my website :)
I’ve just made this for a fussy eater as I wanted to incorporate chia seeds in his diet. I made the recipe using semi skimmed milk and honey and smoothed it down with a hand blender. It tastes lovely and is a good dessert instead of a pudding. Even if he doesn’t like it, and I pretty sure he will, I’m very impressed and would easily eat his. Very nice!
Glad you’re loving this chocolate chia pudding!
Hi, can you make this recipe w added protein powder?
Can you freeze it w the protein powder?
I’m sure that’s fine!
Once again, Lisa has taken simple ingredients and created a comforting classic that tastes good while being both easy to make and nutritionally beneficial. Have I made this several times? Yes. Did I make a big batch to celebrate today’s launch of Healthy Meal Prep? Absolutely. It’s recipes like this that make me feel good and satisfy while keeping me on track with my goals. As always, job well done!
What a perfect way to celebrate the launch!
Hi Lisa,
I have made and love your original chia pudding!! As for this recipe, does the nutritional information include the garnishes?
Thank you!
No it does not :)
Just thought I need to post more comments here, not just on Instagram, so here goes!
Like many of your other chia pudding, chia pudding mousse, or overnight oats recipes, I love how easy this chocolate chia pudding recipe is to make! I usually do it (and the others I mentioned) in big batches so we can have a few portions for the week, but also to freeze some for later.
I just made a huge batch this morning (your recipe times four) and added a tablespoon of peppermint extract, so these will be for afternoon snack or dessert.
As I also made big batches of overnight oats and coconut chia pudding yesterday, we’ve got our healthy breakfast, desserts and snacks sorted for a few weeks ☺️ (Blessed be the freezer!)
Thanks Lisa for bringing us easy, healthy and delicious recipes always!!!
Thanks so much for leaving a review here Aurore! I’m glad you’re loving all the chia seed recipes so far! It really is such a versatile ingredient across breakfast, snacks, and dessert :)
We added just a bit of honey. Our 16 year old son ate seconds. Very good!
This is so delicious! I added some slivered almonds as a topping, so good. I will definitely be making this again.
Very tasty and simple to make. Thank you for the easy dessert! The entire family loved it and exclaimed “wow” upon the first bite.
Does it have to be nondairy milk
No, it can be regular milk as well.
The calories you show for this is wrong. I made this with almond milk and everything else in the exact amounts in the recipe and the total calories for the whole thing are 375.
Thanks for clarifying! I just went back and updated the nutritional information :)
Thank you SO much for noting that chia seed pudding can be blitzed in a blender. I’ve never liked the consistency of chia seeds, so have avoided any of the chia seed pudding recipes. Never occurred to me that I could put it through a blender (I know, duh). Now I’m excited to try several of your recipes!
Glad you’re loving this blended, mousse version! It’s great for a creamier texture :)
I licked the spoon after mixing it all up and it was already yummy! I added a pinch of salt to bring out the sweetness too. I don’t think i can wait 4 hours :) thanks! My choc cravings will be satisfied!
Pinch of salt sounds perfect!
Just made it and it’s so delicious – Is one portion really only 232 kcal? Seems about half of what it should be if I count all the ingredients separately? Hoping I am counting wrong and it is that low!
Yep, the calculations should be correct! As a note, this is just for the chocolate chia pudding base. The nutrition doesn’t account for any of the toppings.
I made this with almond milk and the other ingredients shown and the total calories for the whole thing is 375.
Thanks for sharing lovely chocolate recipes , It’s a great recipe.
SO YUMMY!
I brought mine to work today and actually heated it up in the microwave! Dare I say….this taste like a lava cake when warmed!
I’m unable to find videos on some of your recipes. It always says see video below, but where?
Make sure to have your ad blocker turned off to see the videos!
Thank you for this chia seed pudding recipe- it was delicious! I made it with hemp milk because that’s what I had. I topped it with raspberries. It only chilled in the fridge for about 2 hours because I just couldn’t wait . It was the perfect snack tonight 😊
I made this chia coco pudding recipe the other day. It turned out delicious & I topped it off with vanilla pudding! I actually made to much with grounding to much Chia Seeds So Ive been having a pudding every Evening after Supper..
this is looks good and i wanna do it thank you
Tastes great but after 24 hrs in the fridge it is still somewhat liquid. The chia seeds I just bought don’t expire until 2024 so not sure what happened. 🤔
Add a few more chia seeds, give it a good stir, let it sit 30 min or so.
Just made this for the first time and I was blown away by how good it tastes. Aside from the consistency, it tastes like regular chocolate pudding you’d buy from the store! It totally satisfied my chocolate craving and I’ve saved the recipe for future use, this is going to be a staple in my house!
Glad you loved this chocolate treat Sophia! You should also give my chocolate chia mousse a try for a more blended, moussy texture :)
To make the mousse, at what point do you put it in the blender?
You simply just toss everything into the blender! You can also reference my chocolate chia mousse recipe for specific instructions.