Chocolate Chia Pudding
Updated Jan. 27, 2026

- Total Time
- 15 minutes, plus 8 hours resting
- Prep Time
- 5 minutes
- Cook Time
- 10 minutes, plus 8 hours resting
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- ¼cup cocoa powder or raw cacao powder
- 2cups milk or milk alternative of choice, such as oat or almond
- ½cup black or white chia seeds
- ¼cup maple syrup (or sweetener of choice, to taste)
- 1teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼teaspoon ground cardamom (optional)
- A tiny pinch of ground nutmeg (optional)
- Any combination of toppings, such as berries, banana slices, chopped stone fruit, chopped nuts, granola or coconut flakes, for serving
Preparation
- Step 1
In a large bowl, whisk the cocoa powder to break up any clumps. Add the milk and whisk to combine. Add the chia seeds, maple syrup, vanilla extract and cinnamon, along with the cardamom and nutmeg (if using), and whisk to combine. The mixture will be loose at this point, but will firm up as it chills. (To make single-serving puddings, you can divide the chia mixture among smaller containers or glasses.)
- Step 2
Cover and refrigerate overnight, or for 8 hours. Stir before serving, garnish with preferred toppings and serve. (Chia pudding will keep, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. It will thicken the longer it sits, but can be loosened with a splash of milk.)
Private Notes
Comments
I’ve been making this for years. In order to get a consistent pudding like texture you must thoroughly whisk it after 30 minutes in the refrigerator and again 30 minutes later. If you’ve made this recipe and find that it’s lumpy and thin, this extra step will fix that problem and it will set up well. Also, for better nutrition,I use cacao powder (Terrasoul, unlike man other cocoa powders, is not high in cadmium-which is a common problem with many brands). An ever better sweetener is date syrup.
I regularly make chia pudding. I found if you don't keep stirring or whisking it for 5 or more minutes after you add the liquid that it will clump up. Really hard to break those up. I put my mix in a jar with a screw on lid and shake and agitate it.
This is a very nice “healthy” treat. It’s rich in chocolate flavor. Due to eyeballing the spices measurements because by measuring spoons were in the dishwasher, I put enough spices in that it had a distinct Indian restaurant chai flavor. I will definitely make this recipe again. This is not something I’d serve for a dinner party. It’s something I would serve myself when wanting decadent desserts but feeling sad about middle age weight gain.
Fantastic. Very good and refreshinb in the morning. So easy to make too! Very cinnamony be prepared
This is great! Super easy to make and tasty. I used agave nectar as the sweetener and took the other person’s advice to stir after 30 minutes and an hour. It sat in fridge over night and now I’m sitting here eating a bowl of it topped with strawberries and blueberries. Yum!
Follow up directions exactly and the consistency turned out fine because I followed the others recommendations to stir frequently, but I found the flavor to be very underwhelming to my taste buds and was disappointed
