The humble chocolate pudding. It doesn’t photograph very prettily, and most of us eat it pre-made out of a box or a single-serve tub. I chanced upon this recipe when I was looking for something that could satisfy my sweet tooth, yet was relatively healthy. After all, the chocolate pudding is primarily skim milk and cocoa powder. Milk is an excellent source of protein and vitamins, and cocoa powder gives you all the heart-healthy benefits of dark chocolate without the added sugar or fat.

Plus, homemade pudding means you know what’s going in it, none of that foreign scientific-sounding stuff. I hereby present to you how to make pudding from scratch. It’s so incredibly easy and fuss-free. I also think that this would make a great base recipe for any kind of pudding. Replace the cocoa powder with 2 tbsp of cinnamon and you get cinnamon pudding! Eliminate the cocoa powder and amp up the vanilla and you get vanilla pudding! So on and so forth.

Chocolate Pudding
Adapted from Low Fat Lifestyle
Serving size is dependent on portion size

2 cups skim milk
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Combine sugar, cocoa, cornstarch and salt in a heavy medium saucepan. Stir in milk. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly (do not let burn). Cook and stir for 2 more minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Pour the pudding into a bowl or dessert dishes. Cover the surface with plastic wrap. Chill thoroughly.

*I recommend stirring the pudding continuously if you can afford to, but if you don’t care about lumps, then skip that. I also read somewhere that cornstarch turns clumpy if you don’t dissolve it first, so try dissolving the cornstarch in a little bit of water before adding it to the mixture. I tried that the second time I made the pudding and my pudding is still lumpy – but I like that extra textural dimension.