Chia and Purple Rice Breakfast Pudding with Berries

Chia Breakfast Pudding with Purple Rice

Chia and Purple Rice Breakfast Pudding with Berries Chia and Purple Rice Breakfast Pudding with Berries

I am very excited to share this Chia Breakfast Pudding with Purple Rice recipe, because it really helped me break my breakfast rut and is perfect for summer.  It takes so little active time to prepare at night, then no time at all in the morning to pop out of the fridge.  And it feels like eating dessert for breakfast which is always fun.

For breakfast I’m usually pretty boring: a lot of oatmeal during the winter and granola during the summer, and mix it up on weekends with pancakes, waffles and the like.  But I have been getting so tired of my go-to breakfast, and I really wanted something cool and something fast (still rushing one kiddo off to camp most of the week!).  I also really love to get something extra nutritious into my body first thing in the day to start things right, but am not quite at the point of eating leafy greens before 11am.

I have also been reading Mark Fuhrman’s excellent book, Super Immunity, which makes a very compelling case for the healing powers of natural plant-foods.  He has a recipe for Forbidden Rice Pudding, which uses a Chinese purple rice that is actually higher in antioxidants than blueberries!  Antioxidants neutralize damaging free radicals in the body.  Eating antioxidants can have a wide range of health effects, including reducing the risk for cancer, inflammation, aging, and cell damage.  It’s good to eat antioxidants.

This seemed promising; the nutritional power of berries in a rice pudding that can be  made ahead and served for breakfast!  I didn’t follow his recipe exactly, but rather did a kind of merger of rice pudding and chia seed pudding, which I have also been wanting to try.  Pudding made with chia seeds alone didn’t quiet seem substantial enough for breakfast for me, so adding in the purple rice helps to make this breakfast more filling.

I also used goat milk which is higher in fat, but almond milk would work great.  If you go that route I suggest eating the pudding with some nuts or adding a little fat, such as coconut oil, so that you’re sure to absorb all of the fat-soluble nutrients and the breakfast sticks with you through lunch.

Chia Breakfast Pudding with Purple Rice

Ingredients:
1/2 cup chia seeds
1 cup purple rice (sometimes called Forbidden rice)
4 cups whole milk or unsweetened almond milk or coconut milk
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Directions

  1. Rinse the rice in a fine-mesh sieve, then bring 1 3/4 cups of water and a pinch of salt to a boil in a medium saucepan.  Add the rice, cover and reduce to a simmer, and cook for 30 minutes.  Check the rice once mid-way through cooking to make sure that it doesn’t need more water.  You can also use a rice cooker.
  2. Meanwhile place the milk and the chia seeds in a blender, along with the maple syrup, vanilla and salt.  Be sure not to overload your blender; it should only be 2/3 full or the ingredients will spill over.  If necessary blend in batches. Blend the milk for a couple of minutes to froth the milk and combine all of the ingredients.
  3. Place the milk and chia seed mixture in a large bowl on the counter and let is sit while the rice cooks.  The chia seeds will expand and the mixture will become thicker, which is what you want.
  4. When the rice is done cooking allow it to drain and release some steam in the sieve for a couple of minutes, then stir into the chia and milk mixture.  Let it sit for an additional 20-30 minutes until the chia seeds and rice can be stirred and not sink to the bottom of the pudding.
  5. Store the rice pudding however you’d like; you can add them to individual serving dishes or leave it in the large bowl.  Chill overnight and it’s ready to serve in the morning!  I highly recommend fresh berries for the summer.

by

Tags: