Creamy Chocolate Chia Protein Pudding (17g per serving!)

What’s better than waking up and making breakfast? Having breakfast already waiting for you, of course!

If you’d like to listen to more about this recipe, you can do so in the link below.

If you’re anything like me, breakfast might be a meal that sometimes you just can’t be bothered with. Maybe you’re running late for work, maybe you’ve had a late night or maybe you just don’t have an appetite in the morning!

Chia seeds are ram-packed with energy and nutrients, so a relatively small portion could fuel you all morning, meaning you don’t have to worry about a heavy breakfast knocking you out before you’ve even begun the day.

What’s more, they are easy to prepare the night before, taking only a few minutes and some simple ingredients. Leave it overnight and in the morning, all you have to do is eat!

Why I love this recipe so much

In terms of health, chia seed benefits are crazy. They’re part of that mystical, elite category of ‘superfoods’, a favourite term of this day and age, which basically just means that they are super-duper-off-the-scale HEALTHY.

2 tablespoons of chia seeds provide:

Source: USDA, FoodData Central, 2019	Calories	Protein	Fat	Carbohydrates	Fibre
Chia Seeds	138g	4.68g	8.7g	11.5g	9.75g

From looking at that table we can see that chia contains plenty of fiber, and fibre is an important part of a healthy diet.

We can also see that a chia pudding provides modest levels of protein. This is great because protein has numerous functions in the body, including repairing damaged tissues, muscle growth and helping with our immune system.

You can also see in this podcast why protein needs change as we age.

And the best thing – the little bit of fat that chia contains is over half omega-3! Omega-3 is an essential fat usually found in oily fish.

In fact, gram for gram, chia seeds contain more omega 3 than fatty acids than salmon! That’s quite incredible, but it’s worth mentioning that this is mostly in the form of alpha-linoleic acid (ALA).

Unfortunately, humans can’t process ALA in the same way as omega-3 from salmon, meaning it still isn’t as good a source of omega-3 as we might like!

These tiny black chia seeds are also rich in vital minerals like calcium, iron, magnesium and potassium.

You might want to check out our chia and lemon energy drink, also known as Iskiate. It’s basically flavoured chia water, so if you want pure unadulterated chia energy and health benefits, this is a great way to get them!

Chia’s your chum: benefits of chia seeds for weight loss

We know a lot of our readers are interested in weight loss, so it’s worth mentioning that chia breakfast puddings are a good option if that is what you’re trying to achieve (here are some more weight loss brekkies for those interested!

Of course, no food directly causes weight loss so there are no studies saying that if you eat chia seeds for weight loss the pounds will just fall off!

Weight loss always requires a balanced, healthy meal plan, a small calorie deficit and a sustainable amount of exercise.

However, foods that are healthy, filling and energising and that give your body lots of good stuff in a moderate amount of calories, are the best things to incorporate into a holistic weight loss plan.

A chia breakfast pudding is perfect in that sense!

Fibre and protein are beneficial to weight loss as they are the elements of food that help to make you feel full and energised. Therefore, a breakfast like chia pudding, which has fibre and protein will help to fuel you through the morning.

This means that you are less likely to snack throughout the day, which in turn means you can remain in your calorie deficit and lose weight!

If you want to learn more about weight loss as a vegetarian, we have a vegetarian for weight loss e-book which pretty much covers it all!

We also run a programme called The Vegetarian Protein Fix, to help vegetarians get the best out of their food!

Fix breakfast in your sleep: how to make chia pudding

It’s pretty simple: mix the ingredients together the night before and leave them in the fridge! Overnight, the chia seeds will fatten and absorb the milk, so by morning you’ll have a jelly like mix, ready to be served with any toppings that take your fancy!

There are so many chia pudding ideas out there, it’s hard to know where to start. We went for a simple, straight-forward chia breakfast pudding, which uses just five ingredients.

For the best results, this recipe wants a sweet, soft banana, but if your banana is still a bit underripe, then use a little more maple syrup to give it more sweetness.

One of our favourite tricks is to buy a load of bananas, keep them ‘til they’re turning soft and brown, peel them, stick them in a container and whack them in the freezer.

That way you’ll have a permanent supply of ready to use, sweet bananas.

Other ideas include serving your chia pudding with yogurt, or making coconut chia pudding by using coconut milk or adding desiccated coconut to the mixture. You could also make a chocolate chia pudding, by adding cocoa powder.

We made our chia pudding vegan but you can also make chia pudding with milk from cows.

Really this chia seed breakfast pudding recipe is just an introduction to the many possibilities that chia holds for delicious and healthy breakfasts (for more awesome breakfasts, check out these 400 calorie breakfasts)! Now it’s over to you to get creative!