This Quinoa pudding is a nice twist on traditional rice pudding. This dessert is also gluten-free, vegetarian friendly (I included a tip to make it vegan friendly), and is packed with protein. Bonus!
1 cup of cooked Quinoa has 8g of protein. 1/3 cup of cooked Amaranth has about 4g of protein. 1/3 cup of cooked Millet has about 2g of protein. And 2 cups of hemp milk has 8g of protein. So in this one dessert, you are getting 22g of Protein. How many desserts can you say that about. All three grains are also gluten-free. Living Harvest states that their Hemp Milk is gluten free, vegan, and kosher.
Why hemp milk?
This recipe does call for hemp milk, but you can substitute using another vanilla flavored non-dairy milk.I'd lean towards almond or oat milk because they're a bit thicker like hemp. Rice is a bit too watery, and soy is not as healthy as you think so we stay away from it.
I like the hemp milk because it has a good amount of protein and % of daily calcium compared to other non-dairy milks. And I recommend using the Living Harvest brand hemp milk because it does not have a "grassy" taste at all that some other brands can have. In fact, if you ate this Quinoa pudding without knowing what was in it, you'd never know that hemp milk was in it.
And full disclosure, this Quinoa recipe is from Living Harvest. I just tweaked it a bit to make it more something my taste buds would enjoy. But, below the recipe I did include what the original ingredients were so you might want to take a look-see before going to the supermarket to get ingredients. You might like their original version better.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup cooked organic Quinoa (1 cup of dry Quinoa makes about 3 cups cooked. I use 1 cup for the pudding and use the other 2 cups for lunch/dinner.)
- 1/3 cup cooked organic Amaranth
- 1/3 cup organic millet soaked *
- 2 tbsp organic butter (To make this vegan replace with 1/8 cup canola oil)
- 2 cups Vanilla Hemp Milk
- 2 tbsp agave nectar or honey. I like the agave nectar because it has a low glycemic index.)
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- fresh organic blueberries to mix in at the end
* Note: This recipe calls for Millet soaked but not cooked. The un-cooked millet will add a crunch to the pudding. Some may like it or not. If you're not a crunchy type person, then I would pre-cook the millet, or if that starts to become too much cooking between the Quinoa and the Amaranth, replace the millet with more Quinoa or Amaranth whichever you like more.
Onto the good stuff...
I used freshly grated cinnamon for my dish because I'm all for using as much un-processed foods as possible, and buying a couple sticks of cinnamon at the bulk herbs is really cheap, and it takes like under 2 minutes to grate 1 tsp, so it's worth it to me. But, for those who don't care, bottle stuff works too.
Let's start creatin'
- Preheat the oven to 350. Cook the Quinoa and Amaranth. If you've never cooked these two before, here's how to cook Quinoa, and here's how to cook Amaranth (Note: 1/2 cup dry Amaranth will produce about 1-1/2 cups cooked.) It's important to cook the two separately than together in one pot because each requires a different amount of water for cooking.
- Melt the butter and agave nectar. You can put them in a small bowl and microwave, or heat in a small saucepan.
- In a mixing bowl, combine the melted butter, agave nectar, hemp milk, cinnamon, and vanilla and mix with a spoon thoroughly. Next mix in the cooked Quinao, Amaranth, and Millet*.
- Place into a baking dish, cover with foil and bake at 350 for 35 minutes.
- Let the dish cool before serving. Some people like their puddings a bit more liquidy. If you do, slowly add some more hemp milk until you get the desired feel. It's best to add a little at a time, stir, and then taste. Repeat this until you get what you like.
- Put in small dessert bowls and top with more fresh cinnamon and fresh organic blueberries.
In the original Living Harvest recipe, they add 1/2 cup raisins and 1/2 cup dried cranberries and baked with the pudding. Instead of dry fruits, I wanted to use fresh organic fruits and fold them in at serving time.
Instead of cinnamon, they used the powder of 8 cardamom pods. And instead of vanilla extract, they use 1/8 tsp of finely chopped vanilla pod. At the grocery store vanilla pods were like $18/oz, and as much as I like un-processed stuff, my price threshold was out of reach.
I loved this dessert, and I think you'll enjoy it too!
