Spotlight on : Chia Seeds! (+chia seed pudding recipe!)

Buongiorno tutti!

Maybe you’ve heard about these little guys already, but I’m here to throw my support behind ’em and get you to too! I loooove chia seeds, and have found a couple different ways to incorporate them into my daily diet so I wanted to share. And while we’re eating them, we might as well know why they’re so good for us. 🙂

Chia seeds are definitely gaining popularity and can be found almost everywhere. They’re in just about all supermarkets, and I even see them all the time in Marshalls, T.J. Maxx and Homegoods. But, obviously, I got a big, giant bag of organic chia seeds at Costco 😀

My Costco lifetime supply 😀

I wanted to give you guys a quick little bulleted list of all the health benefits of chia seeds before my recipe and snacking options.

Chia seeds are….

A complete protein
rich in antioxidants
rich in calcium, potassium, and magnesium
contain omega-3 fatty acids
high in fiber
an excellent source of filling energy for your day!

Among other countless benefits, chia seeds are a great source for your digestive health, and we’re always aiming to maintain healthy digestion 🙂

Snacking with chia seeds:

Probably the easiest way to incorporate chia seeds into your diet is to throw them over basically anything. I eat a lot of almond butter, which is conveniently sticky and can hold the little seeds in place. I will often have almond butter on toast or crackers and sprinkle some seeds on top. Or if you like avocado on your toast you can sprinkle them on there as well.

I don’t personally love putting them in smoothies because they are so tiny that they don’t grind, and end up changing the texture of the smoothie a bit.

Chia seed pudding:

This is an AWESOME snack to have during your day! When chia seeds are combined with liquid, they expand over the course of a few minutes, and form a kind of gel. So this snack has a pudding-like consistency, and has even more good stuff in it from the almond milk. Here’s my recipe:

1/2 cup of unsweetened almond milk (or vanilla almond milk if you can find a brand without artificial flavoring)
1/4 chia seeds
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract (if you used unsweetened almond milk- or really love vanilla…)
about 1/4 or 1/4 a little pack of stevia
2 teaspoons of cacao powder if you like 🙂

First, pour seeds into a little container, following by the almond milk (it’ll be very annoying if you pour the seeds in after the milk because they will just float :D) then add your stevia, vanilla (optional), and cacao powder (optional- if you’re feeling chocolately).

For this one I used vanilla almond milk so I just added a little stevia and that’s it!

Mix everything together. Things will seem liquidy at first, but you’ll soon see how much the seeds expand.

Wait 5 minutes, and stir again! In 5 minutes, your seeds start to congeal and it’s better to mix them midway through than to wait until the end.

You can see it starting to congeal right away with the air bubbles that it produces as the seeds expand.

Wait another 5 minutes, stir again, and voila! The proportions in my recipe give a thicker pudding consistency. Obviously if you prefer it more liquidy you can add more almond milk.

Also you can add some nuts or dried fruit on top 🙂

This will be good in the fridge for around 3- 5 days.

That’s it! I hope you guys enjoyed this post, and got inspired to eat some little chia seeds soon! 🙂

A presto!
Amanda <3

second photo: Stacy Spensley, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic