One of the bummers when cutting certain foods out of your eating rotation is that at some point you will really miss it. Miss to the point that you have to figure out how to make whatever it is, and make it taste good – the difficult part! I used to love pudding when I was younger, we would make big bowls of it from the Jell-O box and have it for desserts. Sometimes with mixed fruit added in. Well, I was really needing a sweet snack so I decided to create my own Homemade Banana Pudding and make it vegan and gluten-free too.

When I gave up dairy milk I pretty much gave up pudding. Why? Because after multiple tries using the boxed pudding and soy milk and getting nothing but soupy messes – which is a pain in the butt when you live in a crap apartment without a garbage disposal – I finally Googled pudding and milk. Come to find out the lactose in milk is the binding for the pudding and making it stick together. Hmph for non-dairy milk buying and having pudding.

Well I had finally gotten up the courage to make pudding back in December when I made Butterscotch Pudding Pie. It had turned out awesome and with some crappy sleeping prior to the weekend I decided that to try to combat bad eating (it didn’t happen) I would make sure to have a healthy snack on hand and pudding was it. And with some browning bananas in the fridge banana pudding was the flavor.

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So for the banana pudding process the bananas, vanilla, cinnamon, and 1/2 cup cashew milk in a food processor; I left some banana chunks for texture, but if you don’t like chunks scrape and process again. After the bananas are done, set aside and dump brown sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a small sauce pan. Turn the burner to medium high and whisk the ingredients until the butter is melted. Do this on medium heat so you don’t burn the sugar or cornstarch. Have the milk ready to go next to the pan. Pour the milk in once the butter is melted and whisk, whisk, whisk! I lifted the pan off the burner once it started to thicken so it wouldn’t spit and whisked, then put it back and kept whisking. Turn off heat and take off burner and scrape banana mixture into pan. Mix everything then portion out. Refrigerate until thick.

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It won’t be super thick (add another tablespoon of cornstarch if you want uber-thick) but thick enough and tasted so sweet and bananay. So. Good. Totally hit the spot.

Homemade Banana Pudding, 3 servings

3 Bananas
1 Tsp Cinnamon
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
2 C So Delicious Dairy Free Cashew Milk
1 Tbsp Earth Balance Butter Sticks
1/8 Tsp Salt
1/2 C Wholesome Sweeteners Dark Brown Sugar, packed
3 Tbsp Cornstarch

1. In food processor dump bananas, cinnamon, vanilla, and 1/2 cup milk. Process until creamy.
2. In small sauce pan add brown sugar, cornstarch, and butter.
3. Melt butter on medium heat while whisking.
4. Once butter is melted add milk and don’t stop whisking.
5. Once thick take off burner and pour in banana mixture and whisk.
6. Portion out and enjoy!

Stats:
Calories: 248
Total Fat: 3g
Sodium: 56mg
Carbs: 60g
Protein: 1g

Recipe entered in the Go Dairy Free and So Delicious 8 Ingredient Recipe Contest (such fun!).