Creamy banana pudding the easy healthy way with bananas, chia seeds, cashews, medjool dates, layered with pecans and coconut whipped cream. Vegan and paleo!
On a scale from 1 to GIMME! how badly do you want to dig into those jars right now?
Okay but hold your spoons for a sec, I need to tell you something…
I owe you an apology.
All this time you’ve been trusting me as your source for fruit-filled sweet stuff, but it has taken literal years to post a solid banana pudding recipe up in this blog. Bananas – the world’s favorite fruit. Pudding – the almost best (ice cream, though) creamy dessert form. Banana pudding – so basic salad bars have been doing it for centuries. I gotta wonder…what’s up with that?
This absurdity ends now. Here now today with these multi-layer creamydelush jars and a big shoutout to one awesome reader who emailed me and inspired this one. Because sometimes I need a reminder to quit dreaming up triple chocolate quinoa waffle cookie dough sandwiches and just get back to SIMPLE. We all do.
I don’t want to point fingers, but I think salad bars may actually be to blame here. There’s something about finding a lost shred of cheddar cheese in your pudding that kinda ruins the whole dessert. But hopefully you don’t have that same unfortunate association. Hopefully you have nothing but happy memories of silky pudding layered with used-to-be-crunchy cookies and banana coins and airy whipped cream.
As childhood cheese trauma therapy or just a healthier recreation of one of your fave desserts, I promise this recipe will leave you with nothing but happy banana feels.
I’m not about to tell you to make homemade nilla wafers AND cook then chill a stovetop pudding AND whip coconut cream by hand AND slice your own bananas. Nobody’s got the time or patience for that. I am here to bring you a much much easier version that still has all the necessary elements – creamy, crunchy, fluffy, banana. Because we love short cuts around here.
So here’s what’s happening:
- Banana pudding. Without refined sugar or cooking or any tofu funny business. Just good stuff like banana, coconut milk, chia seeds, cashews, and vanilla. But blended so it’s suuuuuuuuper creamy.
- Pecans. For the CRUNCH element, plus they just taste so dang good with nanas. Roasted is best! If your heart is set on cookies, maybe try these. Or these.
- Coconut whipped cream. Or cocowhip (like cool whip but vegan!) if you really want to make things extra easy on yourself.
- Bananas. Okay you do actually have to slice these yourself.
The trick to getting the pudding just as dreamy as possible is to combine all the nuts/seeds/fruits/stuff in the blender, blend briefly so it’s all mixed, and then let it sit and soak for about 10-15 minutes. This will soften the chia seeds and cashews so then you can crank that blender up to high and achieve max lusciousness.
Oh, and cashew-free lower fat option included for you too!
And just when these cookies thought they had dibs on all the ripe bananas in my house. Not so fast cookies, not so fast.
Happy easier + healthier Creamy Vegan Banana Pudding parfait-ing to you!
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Creamy Vegan Banana Pudding
- Yield: 4 parfaits 1x
- Category: dessert
- Method: blender
- Cuisine: american
Description
Creamy banana pudding the easy healthy way with bananas, chia seeds, cashews, medjool dates, layered with crunchy pecans and coconut whipped cream. Vegan and paleo!
Ingredients
Pudding
- 2 cups (480g) non-dairy milk (I used carton coconut milk)
- 1 ripe banana (120g)
- 1/4 (40g) cup chia seeds
- 1/2 (65g) cup raw cashews*
- 6 pitted medjool dates (100g)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
For layering
- Roasted pecans
- Coconut whipped cream or cocowhip
- 2 ripe bananas, sliced
Instructions
- In a high speed blender, combine the pudding ingredients and blend briefly.
- Let the mixture sit and soak for 10-15 minutes to soften the chia seeds and cashews.
- Blend again on high until creamy and smooth.
- Pour into a jar and refrigerate overnight. It will thicken as it chills.
- Layer the pudding into jars with the pecans, sliced bananas, and coconut whipped cream.
- Enjoy!
Notes
*You can substitute the cashews with 1/2 cup (120g) non-dairy yogurt, but you will need to reduce the milk to 1 1/2 cups. It won’t be quite as rich.
Nutrition
- Calories: 292
- Sugar: 23
- Fat: 13
- Carbohydrates: 40
- Fiber: 7
- Protein: 6
Keywords: chia, pudding, no bake, easy, breakfast, snack, dessert, vegan, dairy-free
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Thank you SO much! I’m making this today for my husband who will love it. It looks delicious – and super easy too. I share your blog and YouTube to everybody who is trying to be healthy, watch their weight and still eat yummy treats.
★★★★★
You are the best Joan! Thank you for sharing, and I am excited to hear what your husband thinks🤗
Woahhh that texture is shouting “CREAMY” from the roof tops! It looks amazing. Love, love that you added pecans too because I swear, roasted pecans with creamy stuff makes for one delicious bite. My favorite way to eat roasted pecans is on top of creamy oatmeal. OMG. So good. Ok, I died laughing at this “This absurdity ends now.” Hahahahha. How DARE YOU take this long to post a banana pudding? Lmao. And thank you for non-tofu pudding. I see tofu pudding a lot and while I finally have learned to enjoy tofu within the past 6 months, it’s in savory dishes. I can’t get past the idea of tofu in desserts. And a big yes to the cashews..I swear they have to be the most amazing ingredient out there for non-dairy desserts, sauces, ice cream, you name it. I spend so much money on cashews, it’s scary, but what they do is magical. Loving this pudding recipe Natalie and agree with you, ain’t nobody got time for a billion steps, so this short and simple pudding is where it’s AT GIRL.
Wait you have been anti tofu all this time too? No dates, no tofu, no bananas…how can you even call yourself a vegan?? lol! I actually love tofu chocolate pudding, I ate it a lot when I was first vegan, but the thought is way weird and I just prefer not to eat a lot of soy. I’ll stick to dreamy cashews, please and thank you😊 I swear you have played a big part in finding my love of pecans, and so for that I say a genuine thank you and also um thanks a lot for making me love one of the most expensive nuts ha🙄
Lol! I know I’m such a fake vegan 🤣🤣🤣
And proud of it🙌😊
I have a counter full of bananas, and not feeling banana bread so this is perfect! I love the addition of pecans to achieve a “Cookie crunch.” And this recipe has so much potential – dreaming up a berry version and chocolate version right now 😉
The struggle is REAL now deciding between banana bread vs nice cream vs banana pudding now😬😬 I need to buy like five bunches of bananas lol. I almost made some sort of cookie crumble situation, but why mess with the already crunchy perfection of pecans, right? Oooh I very much like the way you think…🍫🍓🍒
On a scale from 1 to GIMME I would definitely choose GIMME!! Looks so delicious, Natalie. I love bananas so much.
Haha a very scientific scale, right? Thanks girly <3
This recipe looks amazing. Can’t wait to try it! Fruit is our friend and we eat lots of it in our house. 🙂 So glad I discovered your site and I’m looking forward to exploring and trying more of your recipes. I definitely will be sharing them with my clients…. many thanks!
Haha aw yay, I am happy you are fruity lovers too🤗 Welcome and thanks for sharing❤️ Happy baking, Maggie!
Bahahahaha!! Finding cheese in your pudding 😂😂 I blame salad bars, too! I remember years ago when I worked at Ruby Tuesday and every time I would walk by the salad bar, I’d pick random things out of the pudding or cottage cheese, but I kid you not, it was usually shredded cheese or carrots out of the pudding 😂 But let’s talk about THIS pudding!!! I already know I’m going to love it because you’ve managed to get so many favorites in one jar…bananas, dates, chia, cashews, and pecans!! I am a sucker for roasted pecans – so dang buttery and perfectly crunchy! Adding this to my list for when I don’t use all of our bananas for smoothies 😆
P.S. – I finally made quinoa flour! Now I’m waiting for ripe bananas to make your pancakes 😍😘
It was Jason’s Deli for me, but yes you totally get me the cheese in your pudding trauma thing😂 Oh geez, as if I needed another reason to not like cottage cheese. Somehow shredded carrots in my pudding sounds less gross than cheese…🤔 OMG and guess who finally bought buckwheat today haha! SO now I can make YOUR pancakes…although I may have to make those chocolate cardamom cups first🙊
Luxusní 😊
★★★★★
Mmmmm ano😋
Any other suggestions for nut substitutes? I have made sunflower seed butter – could i use this instead? How much if so? Many thanks
In place of the cashews you could use the yogurt option I mentioned in the notes with soy yogurt perhaps. Or you could try sunflower seed butter, probably about 1/3 cup, although that will change the flavor quite a bit. Or hemp seeds would probably be the best seed to use there instead. They blend up really creamy and have less flavor than sunflower seeds in my opinion. Hope that helps!
Delicious 😋😋😋. I changed chia seeds to chia flour.
Yep that will work too since we are blending it all up anyways! I’m so happy you liked it😊
This is over the top delicious! I doubled the recipe for a sweet ending to my dinner party tonight. Thanks so much for posting! My learning curve included a 2nd double batch due to me not realizing the dates had pits. Oh dear… my poor blender, and it’s not a high speed model so I ended up soaking the next batch of PITTED dates in hot water & boiling the cashews for 10 minutes before blending. Worked like a charm.
★★★★★
OH NO!! 🙈 Yes pitting the dates is quite an important key, sorry you had to learn that the hard way. But I am so happy you still gave it another try and it was a success!
Can this be done in a food processor? And would freezing the banana make a difference?
Food processors aren’t generally powerful enough to blend chia seeds completely smooth so I worry it will turn out lumpy. Frozen banana will also be harder to blend smooth, but if you let it thaw first should be fine!
This was so delicious. I didn’t layer it; but loved, loved the pudding.
YAY!! Who cares about presentation as long as it’s tasty 🙂 So happy you enjoyed it Kiesha!