How to: Make Homemade Pudding

I always feel a sense of satisfaction when the refrigerator is almost empty by the end of the week. It's nice to know that I planned well enough to have enough great food for homemade meals throughout the week and did not need to throw away food because I didn't use it and it went bad. One of the ingredients I'm always looking for extra uses for is milk. Every week we buy a half gallon of skim milk and seem to end up with extra at the end of the week.

A great use for skim milk is homemade pudding. I know what you're thinking, you can't make great pudding with skim milk, heavy cream or at least whole milk is a must. This is not the case.

This is a great base recipe for chocolate pudding that isn't loaded with sugar and fat. This recipe could easily be adapted to be chocolate mint, chocolate raspberry, chocolate almond...the list goes on and on.

Ingredients, recipe adapted from Leanne Bakes

- 5 tablespoons corn starch

- 1/3 cup cocoa powder

- 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

- 3 cups skim milk

- 1/4 cup granulated sugar

- 1 tablespoon butter

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


1.) Bring 2 cups of milk to a boil, watch carefully so you do not burn the milk
2.) Whisk together the corn starch, cocoa powder, sugar and remaining milk
3.) Once the milk is boiling, slowly whisk in the cocoa mixture
4.) Reduce the heat to medium low and stir the pudding until it becomes thick
5.) Add the chocolate chips and stir to combine
6.) Once the pudding is thick remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla and butter
7.) Pour the pudding into a large bowl and cover with plastic wrap so that the plastic touches the surface of the pudding (this prevents a skin from forming)
8.) Refrigerate until the pudding is cold and thick

 Today after work Brian and I are going to a work function so no running. Boo. We call things like this mandatory fun.