vegan rice pudding

by Bella Black

I wanted to make an easy and comforting dessert because it’s starting to be actually cold where I live. For this recipe you really just need plant milk, rice, sugar and whatever spices/seasonings you want. I like to keep mine pretty plain and then add fun toppings (see topping ideas at the bottom + a bonus spiced banana caramel recipe). This recipe makes about 6 servings. If using sweetened plant milk, decrease your sugar.

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup rice (I use jasmine)

3 1/2 cups plant milk (I use unsweetened vanilla almond milk)

3-4 Tbsp sugar (I use half brown sugar, half maple syrup- use whatever sweetener you prefer)

1 pinch of salt

optional- vanilla extract, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, whole vanilla pod

METHOD OF PREP

1. Rinse rice well under running water until the water is mostly clear.

2. Add rice to a saucepan with sugar, a pinch of salt (here is where you’d add your spices or vanilla pod if you’re lucky enough to have one)

3. Pour in 1/2 cup of plant milk and turn to heat to medium low. Cook and stir occasionally until almost all of the liquid is absorbed.

4. Add another 1/2 cup milk and continue the process, cooking until liquid is almost completely absorbed.

5. Continue adding milk in stages until you’ve used up all 3 1/2 cups. You want to stay by the stove and stir so that everything is creamy and dreamy.

6. Once all of your milk is added, check for doneness. You want the rice to be very soft without any crunchies in the center. If your rice still isn’t cooked, add more milk or water and cook a bit more.

7. You can eat this warm or let it cool! The possibilities are endless. If it’s a little thick feel free to add some cold plant milk to thin it out. I love mine with toppings.

TOPPINGS

So topping your rice pudding is honestly the best part. Here are some suggestions that I’ve tried.

⛧fresh fruit like strawberries & blueberries

⛧pears poached in chai tea

⛧sliced bananas and shavings

⛧spiced banana caramel sauce (okay this one was a happy accident so I’m going to include the recipe for you)

SPICED BANANA CARAMEL SAUCE

Okay real talk- when I made this recipe this week I wanted to make a topping of spicy poached pears. I started assembling my ingredients but when I went to add my pear it was rotten. COOL. So I improvised with the only other fruit I had- frozen bananas. And it turned out WONDERFULLY. So here’s the “recipe” for that.

I steeped about 4 tbsp of spicy tea with 1.5 cups of water to make a strong concentrate. I used MEM Tea’s Red Chili. It’s a black tea with cacao, ancho chili, cayenne and cinnamon. I think a good chai tea or other spiced kind would work well it its place.

I added the concentrated tea to a sauce pan with about 1 Tbsp of maple syrup and 1.5 frozen bananas. I let this cook up until the bananas were soft and then mashed them as well as I could with a potato masher. I let this cook on medium high so it was really boiling, stirring occasionally. I let this reduce by at least half until it looked very thick and syrupy. Then I let it cook completely and popped it in the blender to make it smooth.

Originally I was going to poach a pear in the spicy tea mixture but hey… sometimes you have to improvise.