This Sugar Free Chocolate Pudding is unbelievably smooth and creamy. It takes only 20 minutes to make and can be made dairy-free too. A wonderful keto-friendly treat for the whole family.
I was never really been much of a pudding person growing up. I’ve always loved keto chocolate mousse, keto cheesecake, and other creamy, rich desserts, but pudding wasn’t particularly high on my list.
That is, until I started making my own keto chocolate pudding at home. Boy did I change my tune quickly! It is so much better than the boxed varieties I remember from my childhood.
And I daresay it’s become one of my favorite desserts. I even used it as the filling for my keto chocolate cake!
Why you will love this recipe
If chocolate pudding evokes wonderful memories of childhood, but you no longer want to consume sugar, then this is the recipe for you. Done right, it’s an incredibly delicious treat that’s worthy of a spot at your dessert table.
Why make your own sugar free pudding at home?
- Smooth and creamy
- Deeper chocolate flavor
- Dairy free option
- No questionable ingredients
- Just as easy as making it from a box (seriously!)
- It has only 3.1g net carbs per serving
It beats out boxed mixes every time for flavor and consistency, and you have the advantage of knowing exactly what’s going into your dessert. And really is easy to make!
Reader Reviews
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“This recipe is awesome! I tried it yesterday and it’s the first time I’ve had chocolate pudding come out well (I’ve tried so many recipes). It had a mousse-like texture that I really loved.” – Carol
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“OMG you must make this! Seriously one of the best desserts ever, keto aside! Can’t keep it in the fridge for more than a day or 2 between my husband and I. It is perfect exactly as written (I do the dairy version).” – Nikki
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“Thank you for the wonderful recipes…this is one of our favorites!” – Mary
Ingredients needed
- Heavy cream (or coconut milk): Full fat dairy or coconut milk helps give this sugar-free pudding a rich, creamy consistency.
- Hemp or almond milk (or more coconut milk): Adding a little nut milk helps lighten it up a bit and make it less calorific. If you are making the dairy free option, just use more canned coconut milk.
- Sweetener: I like a mix of allulose and Swerve for this recipe. See the Expert Tips for more options.
- Eggs/egg yolks: You will need 1 whole egg and 2 egg yolks for this recipe.
- Glucomannan: You do need a thickening agent to help the pudding set properly. I have used both xanthan gum and glucomannan, and I like glucomannan better.
- Cocoa powder: Choose a good quality cocoa powder like Rodelle or Ghirardelli. Do not use natural cacao as it won’t mix in well and the pudding may end up lumpy.
- Butter: This makes the pudding smoother and richer in flavor and texture, and it helps set properly. You can use coconut oil for dairy-free.
- Pantry Staples: Vanilla extract and salt.
Step-by-step directions
1. Heat the liquid: In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the heavy cream and hemp milk. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and whisk in the sweetener.
2. Temper the eggs: In a medium bowl, whisk the egg and egg yolks together until smooth. Slowly add 1/2 cup of the hot cream mixture into the eggs, whisking continuously.
3. Combine the mixtures: Slowly whisk the tempered eggs back into the saucepan of hot cream mixture.
4. Add the cocoa powder: Stir in the cocoa powder and return the mixture to medium low heat. Continue to whisk continuously until the mixture is smooth and begins to thicken, 3 to 5 minutes. Then sprinkle the surface with glucomannan and whisk vigorously to combine.
5. Add the butter: Remove from heat and add the butter and vanilla extract, whisking until smooth. Divide between 6 dessert cups and refrigerate until set, 2 to 3 hours.
6. Serve: Garnish with lightly sweetened whipped cream and some berries or chocolate shavings.
Expert tips
Tempering the eggs is a critical step for making homemade pudding so don’t rush it or skip it. It helps keep the mixture from curdling and becoming lumpy.
Keep your eye on the prize! This is not a dessert you can walk away from, as it can thicken up without warning, so keep your eye on it.
The process for the dairy and the dairy-free versions are identical. For dairy-free, use full fat canned coconut milk for all 2 cups of the liquid.
Sweetener Options
This Sugar Free Chocolate Pudding works best with a bulk (granular) sweetener rather than a concentrated extract. I like to use a combination of Swerve and allulose, but you can do one or the other. Allulose does make the pudding take a lot longer to set so be aware of that.
Frequently Asked Questions
Curdling happens when you add eggs too quickly to hot liquids without bringing them up to temperature first. That’s why tempering is an important step. However, there is an easy fix for curdled pudding. Simply transfer all of it into a blender and blend until smooth.
You can make this pudding up to three days in advance. Keep covered in the refrigerator. I don’t recommend freezing pudding as it changes the texture.
This sugar free pudding recipe has 4.9g of carbs and 1.8g of fiber per serving. That comes to 3.1g net carbs per serving.
More luscious chocolate dessert recipes
Sugar Free Chocolate Pudding Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups (295.74 ml) heavy whipping cream, (or full fat coconut milk)
- 3/4 cup (177.44 ml) almond/hemp/macadamia milk, (or more coconut milk)
- 3 tbsp Swerve Sweetener
- 3 tbsp allulose
- 1 large egg
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1/4 tsp glucomannan, (or xanthan gum)
- 6 tbsp (30.43 g) cocoa powder
- 3 tbsp (42.61 g) butter, cut into 3 pieces
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the heavy cream and hemp milk. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and whisk in the sweetener.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the egg and egg yolks together until smooth. Slowly add 1/2 cup of the hot cream mixture into the eggs, whisking continuously.
- Slowly whisk the tempered eggs back into the saucepan of hot cream mixture.
- Stir in the cocoa powder and return the mixture to medium low heat. Continue to whisk continuously until the mixture is smooth and begins to thicken, 3 to 5 minutes. Then sprinkle the surface with glucomannan and whisk vigorously to combine.
- Remove from heat and add the butter and vanilla extract, whisking until smooth. Divide between 6 dessert cups and refrigerate until set, 2 to 3 hours.
- Garnish with lightly sweetened whipped cream and some berries or chocolate shavings
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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Just made this dessert tonight. Best chocolate pudding I’ve ever made. Not overly sweet… just right. On par with chocolate mousse I had once in a French restaurant. Thank you for the recipe!
So glad you like it!
Love this pudding recipe! One question though. Can I turn this into vanilla pudding by simply omitting the cocoa powder and adding vanilla bean or do I need to add anything else?
I don’t have access to Allulose, since it hasn’t yet been made available for sale in Canada. Would Splenda/BochaSweet be a good equivalent?
I have 4 6oz dessert cups. Would you please tell me what size yours are, so I can adjust the recipe, if needed? Thanks!!
Each serving is about 1/2 cup, which is 4 oz.
Thank you!!
Can you post the lemon cake receipe please I really enjoy your receipes
Which lemon cake recipe? Just use the search box and type in “lemon” and you should find what you’re looking for.
The new swerve makes things a bit confusing sometimes. My swerve already has allulose in it so can I use that for all 6 T of sweetener?
It only has a little so you may find that the pudding recrystallizes.
Oh wow, this was wonderful and tasted just like the box mix I remember!!! I did have to make a small change since I didn’t have any almond milk and not enough heavy cream, I used 1/2 cup heavy cream and 1 1/2 whole milk but had to increase xanthan from 1/2 tsp to 3/4 tsp for it to thicken enough. I also added a small pinch of sea salt. It was fantastic. I did a search for vanilla pudding but didn’t see that pop up. Do you have a vanilla pudding like this one??
As always, your recipes rock. Thank you for another great one.
I have one question: I noticed that in many recipes you use both Allulose and Swerve. I’m just wondering about that. Thank you for your reply.
Here’s why… allulose keeps things softer and helps keep the sweeteners from recrystallizing. But allulose alone can make the pudding take FOREVER to set. This is the happy medium. 🙂
I would love to try this, I have canned coconut cream (unsweetened). Is canned coconut cream the same as canned coconut milk? I also have Silk coconut milk in the carton. If canned coconut cream is the same as canned coconut milk I think I can use canned coconut cream as my first ingredient (1 1/4 cups (10 oz)). Do I blend the canned coconut cream first, since it is usually separated somewhat? Then I can use 3/4 cup of the Silk coconut milk as my second ingredient? Excuse the beginner questions.
So no matter what, canned coconut cream doesn’t make things quite as thick as heavy cream. So I recommend using the FULL can of coconut cream, thick part and watery part, which should be close to 1 2/3 cup. Then make up the difference in liquid with the carton stuff. That should do it!
In step 3 you say sprinkle with xanthan gum, and in step 4 you say sprinkle with glucomannan. Recipe calls for 1/4 tsp. Do I sprinkle half of that in each step?
Corrected now!
Soooo good! I accidentally used a whole cup of cocoa so I used a whole can of coconut milk plus a half cup of heavy cream. I also added a pinch of sea salt to ofset any bitterness and increased the Swerve to 3/4 cup. I took this to a friend’s house the next day who is diabetic and needs to eat more keto friendly foods. He LOVED it!
The nutritional information is for 8 servings. Your recipe says 6 servings. Too hard for me to adjust. Sorry.
No it’s not. The nutritional card says 1 serving = 1/6th (one-sixth) of the recipe. No adjustments are needed.
Made this tonight and it was fantastic. I’ve been playing around with my Vitamix, so found a blender pudding recipe and applied their methods with Carolyn’s ingredients (no changes to CK’s amounts): Add warm cream & almond milk, egg yolks, and swerve to the blender, and blend for 5 minutes on highest setting. Then add xantham gum, pulse a couple of times, then butter and vanilla, pulse a few times. Done! Smooth, deeply flavored chocolate goodness. Thanks for the recipe!!
OMG you must make this! Seriously one of the best desserts ever, keto aside! Can’t keep it in the fridge for more than a day or 2 between my husband and I. It is perfect exactly as written (I do the dairy version) – however, bc organic heavy whipping cream is hard to find for me and quite expensive too, I tried this recipe using all organic whole milk instead and doubled the xanthan gum and it still turned out great! Not quite as thick, but as the original recipe turns out thicker than your standard pudding anyways, the whole milk approach was actually more similar to classic pudding, so it works! I do like the original, thicker version better, but using whole milk allows me to make more of it more often 😉 TY for another life-changing recipe!!
Try using whole fat coconut milk and heavy cream. It is a lot less expensive that way.
My husband is sensitive to Swerve could I use allulose instead?
Yes, but it will take MUCH longer to set properly.
Holy Hannah. This is delicious!
I made mine and it is gritty. What did I do wrong
Does it taste like the coconut cream used? I tried making a different recipe with the coconut cream once, and all I could taste was the the coconut cream, not the chocolate. I really WANT to like this, as I’d like a non-dairy recipe for pudding.
What type of cream? Heavy cream? Half n half?
Heavy cream.
This pudding is so good! I just made it for the second time in 3 days. I followed the recipe exactly the first time. This time I used 2 oz unsweetened chocolate instead of the cocoa and I like it better. It has a smoother but still rich flavor. Both times I also added a few drops of monkfruit sweetener. After it cools it’s kind of solid, almost like a softish fat bomb. I like that about it, though! It is delicious! Thanks for the recipe.
Oh, and I give it five stars!