Rich, silky, salty-sweet Vegan Butterscotch Pudding. Made with coconut sugar and vegan butter for an easy healthier holiday indulgence!

How To Make Decadent Dairy-Free Butterscotch Pudding

Its a pretty simple concept to start with—brown sugar, butter, eggs, milk, vanilla. But about half that ingredient list isn’t quite the vegan/healthier style I was going for, so we have some swapping to do.

Ingredients You’ll Need

Coconut sugar. You could stick with brown sugar, I almost did too, but last second decision I decide to swap to coconut sugar and it worked and caramelized beautifully.
Non-dairy milk. Typically butterscotch pudding is made with a mix of whole milk and heavy cream, so instead we’re using oat milk plus coconut cream. Feel free to swap the oat milk for almond or soy or whatever you like.
Tapioca starch. Instead of eggs, we are making a starch slurry with a quarter of the milk and a few tablespoons of tapioca to thicken this pudding. Arrowroot or cornstarch will work just as well.
Vanilla, salt, and water. All essential, all already vegan.
Vegan butter. As the title would suggest this is a key ingredient and flavor, and I am so grateful for my friends at Miyoko’s Creamery for creating a vegan butter out of cashews and coconut that has REAL flavor. I’ll get more into why I love butter this in a moment…
Booze. Bourbon or scotch are typically used for butterscotch pudding. This is an optional addition if you are feeling extra festive, tastes delicious without too!

My Go-To Vegan Butter

I’ve been using Miyoko’s vegan butter for a while in baking and cooking, I’ve even got my mom seeking it out at her grocery store now. There are many reasons I love and choose it…

The ingredients: Coconut oil, cashew milk, water, sunflower oil, nothing weird I can’t pronounce…um yes please! Plus it’s all organic, and actually cultured instead of just a hodgepodge of hydrogenated oils.
The consistency: I’ve baked with a few different vegan butters, and some of them soften/melt way too fast and don’t work well for creaming into a batter. This one holds it’s shape and creams together with sugar beautifully, plus it also melts and spreads really well (P.S. they make a spreadable OATMILK (!!) variety that I love too).
The flavor: No natural flavors! It simply tastes like what it is and what it is is delicious and so buttery. I used the unsalted variety for this recipe, but I’ve made vegan risotto and cauliflower alfredo sauce and all sorts of savory stuff with the salted kind too.

Tips For The Perfect Pudding

This is not a long or complicated recipe, but it does require a bit of babysitting to make sure it doesn’t burn or clump or bubble over. So watch and whisk frequently while it’s on the stove. I also really recommend you use a richer milk like coconut milk or cashew cream for at least half of the milk amount to get the creamiest consistency. Chilling long enough (overnight is ideal!) is important for the creamiest possible pudding too.

And while technically optional, coconut whipped cream and a drizzle of homemade caramel on top really do hit the spot.

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