Chocolate Avocado Pudding

Who's late to the party again? Me, that's who. I've been seeing links to recipes like this for ages and have meant to try this for ages. But I just barely got around to it. A bunch of ripe $.39 avocados were helpful. Maybe you come late to parties too. If you do, we can hang out in the corner eating our chocolate avocado puddings together. We won't regret it.

We can even invite our husbands over. Even if they claim not to like avocado. Kip gobbled up half of mine the other day and liked it. It came from a blender so he knew something was up and asked what was in it. I told him that the food industry has their little secrets and I've got mine.

This is so delicious and so smooth. It is more in texture to Jello pudding than most homemade puddings (whether that's a selling point for you or not). I hate Jello pudding, but I think they go for that texture for a reason--it's smooth and just thick enough. That's how this pudding is. It's very very creamy and the texture--I mean, it's just perfect.

The other thing I love about this (besides it being delicious because it really is--I crave it every time I tell someone about it) is that even though there's an avocado in it, it will keep. You can eat part now and part the next day. You can put it in school lunches. You can make it ahead. Unlike homemade guacamole, which looks like the compost bin ate it by day two.

This is not a vegan version, but I'd bet my buttons you could vegan it in an instant. I recommend using canned coconut milk and real maple syrup to do so.

The one thing you should be aware of with this pudding is that it's dessert. I know. I know. It's dessert that you just threw a super food into and I'm sure your skin will thank you, but it's still got 1/4 C sugar for what could easily be considered one large serving or two small ones. And that's a lot. I tried making it with half the sugar and half the cocoa (knowing that adding half the sugar and all the cocoa could make it a bitter disaster). It wasn't terrible. I ate it. But it wasn't chocolate pudding. It was an avocado-type-chocolate-ish smoothie.

The other thing I should tell you is that this is really very filling. I don't know what it is about avocado, but it is so so filling to me. The day I tried eating this all by myself (for breakfast--it was the lower sugar experiment), it was all I ate and I could barely get it all down and was not even close to hungry at my next meal. When I ate a half serving of this, I still got till 1:00 before being hungry for lunch. And, yes, I know avocado has, like, 22 grams of fat, but so does 1/4 C of butter and I don't think it will fill me up the same way (but then I've never made a butter smoothie--hmmm--bet I'd be the first one to that party).

Chocolate Avocado Pudding
serves 2
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cost: $.70
(avocado: .50-1.00, milk: .05, sugar: .05, cocoa: .10)

Note: I used a small blender for this. Using a big one might be difficult because the blades might pass right over the avocado. If you only have a large blender, I recommend doubling or tripling and scraping down the sides frequently.

1 ripe (but not overripe) avocado
1/4 C sugar (or pure maple syrup, which I also tried and to good effect, though it adds a slight maple flavor to the end product)
1/4 C cocoa
6-7 Tbsp milk
drop vanilla (optional)

Blend in blender.

PRINTABLE RECIPE