Vegan banana pudding isn’t a recipe I initially had on my list of Southern Sweets to tackle. But let me tell you — pregnancy cravings will pop up at the oddest times for the most random things. A few weeks ago, that was banana pudding.
I don’t think I’ve had banana pudding since I was a child at some family gathering. You know the kind… with the layers of fresh bananas and those vanilla cookies. Once I thought about it, I couldn’t let it go until I made a suitable vegan version to quench the craving.
Now I’ve never made a vegan pudding before (except for some failed attempts with accidentally vegan pre-packaged varieties). So it was a bit of an experiment. But at the end of the day, it’s really a pretty simple recipe with only one ingredient that I would guess may not be in your pantry already.
What is agar agar powder?
That one off the wall ingredient is agar agar powder. What is that? Well, according to Wikipedia, Agar-agar is a natural vegetable gelatin counterpart. White and semi-translucent, it is sold in packages as washed and dried strips or inpowdered form. It can be used to make jellies, puddings, and custards. For making jelly, it is boiled in water until the solids dissolve.
Got all that?? Basically, it’s vegan and it makes things jello-y. Your vegan banana pudding can survive without it if you can’t find any. It will just be a little less firm.
What about the cookies?
Other than agar agar, this recipe has a few other ingredients that you probably already have or can easily get at any grocery store. Just be sure to read the labels on the vanilla cookies. At my local store, it was the cheap store brand that was accidentally vegan. If you can’t find any that aren’t lurking with eggs or dairy, vanilla Oreo’s would work well. I’ll leave it up to you on whether or not you want to leave the filling in or scrape it out. Personally, I’d probably hunt down the thin version of the vanilla Oreo’s and go all-in with the filling.
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup corn starch or arrowroot starch
- 1/4 tsp agar agar powder
- 3 cups non-dairy milk
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup mashed banana
- vanilla cookies
- 2-3 additional bananas, sliced
- vegan whipped cream, optional
Instructions
- In a sauce pan, combine the sugar, starch, and agar agar powder until well mixed. Add in the soy milk and then turn the heat on medium-low. Whisk constantly. Don’t get distracted and forget to whisk. Pudding burns easily.
- It will start to thicken. Once it is boiling and has gotten pretty thick, add in the mashed banana and cook for an additional 2 minutes.
- Remove from heat and whisk in the vanilla extract.
- Place a layer of sliced bananas on the bottom of your serving dish of choice. Top with a layer of the pudding, then a layer of cookies. Repeat until you’ve used up all the pudding. Feel free to get fancy with the top layer and make it pretty with vegan whipped cream.
- Place in the fridge for 2 hours to allow in to continue to set. The eat up! Best enjoyed the same day for optimal banana coloring and cookie firmness.
