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Transcript
Welcome to The Sensitive Kitchen where home cooks are inspired to Cook to Enable Those You Love to Flourish. I’m Cindy Sullivan, registered dietitian, passionate nutrition, educator, and accomplished home cook. Whether you’re changing how you cook for food sensitivities, allergies, intolerances, or just trying to eat healthier on a budget, you’re in the right place.
Most episodes, I will share favorite recipes as well as modification tips and nutrition benefits. Occasionally I’ll have a guest or special episode like modifying holiday favorites. My favorite foods? They’re raspberries and homemade chocolate chip cookies. My latest cooking project was long fermented sourdough bread,
Hello everyone, welcome to The Sensitive Kitchen. I’m so glad you joined me today. We are here to talk about flexseed pudding. It is a recipe that you’re going to want to make. It’s simple, easy, whether you want it for breakfast or snack or even a dessert. And joining me today is one of my students, Maryam Alnouman.
Cindy: Maryam, welcome! Maryam: Hello! I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me! Cindy: Oh, you’re so welcome. Maryam has been helping me with my podcast this year behind the scenes. You haven’t heard from her yet, but she’s been doing graphics and transcripts and all kinds of wonderful things for us, for the podcast. So to get started Maryam, before we talk about your recipe, tell us a little bit about you.
Maryam: Well, I am a Nutrition and Dietetics student at the University of North Florida. I am a junior and I’ll be graduating next year. And I’m also a certified personal trainer. I’ve been doing that for almost a year. So, health is a very important aspect of my life and I love helping others find ways to become a healthier, stronger, and happier version of themselves.
Cindy: Awesome! That’s what we’re all about here. And my readers will like this recipe you have developed because it gives them lots of options and there are very few allergens in it. But before we get to that recipe again, tell us any tips in general, for our listeners about modifying recipes. Maryam: I would say my number one tip is to make sure to read the ingredients on a food item before purchasing some items may or may not be apparent that they contain dairy or gluten or other allergens, unless you check the ingredients list. So always read the food label before purchasing.
Cindy: That’s a great tip. And even if you’ve purchased it in the past, right, they may have changed something in that product. Maryam: Yes, exactly. Sometimes it’s even the processing of items. So it may say it “may contain milk” because they use the same machine to process some items so always be on the lookout for those.
Cindy: Great. So you’ve developed a recipe for the blog and the podcast today. Tell us about this. Maryam: I made flaxseed pudding. It is a vegan and gluten-free recipe. It is super quick and easy to make. If you are usually in a rush in the mornings and you don’t have time to make breakfast, this recipe is especially great for you since you can prepare it the night before.
Cindy: So why did you choose to make flaxseed pudding, other than for us people like me who are not morning people, so it’s always a good thing to have a make-ahead breakfast, what other things drew you to this possibility?
Maryam: I believe I heard about it from you and it sparked my attention because I have had chia seed pudding before and to be honest, I wasn’t very fond of the seedy texture that chia seeds have. So I wanted to see if flaxseed pudding would be a better alternative. It would be ground flax seeds, so it’s not seeds. And also breakfast is one of my favorite meals of the day. So I’m always on the lookout for new recipes to try.
Cindy: so those of you listen up, you know, I’ve promoted the chia seed pudding as a great source of omega 3s, and we’ll get to our nutrition at the end. But for those of you who, like Maryam , are like- eh, I don’t like the texture of chia seeds. This is a great alternative, even for omega 3s, so hang on to that. Tell us a little bit about the ingredients in this flexseed pudding, Maryam.
Maryam: Another great thing about this recipe is it only has three ingredients. So, it’s super simple! It only contains milk, flaxseeds and sweetener. And the sweetener could be also optional. So really this could be a 2- ingredient recipe. For the milk, you can choose whichever milk you prefer. I personally used oat milk in this recipe. Now, if you want a lower carb meal, then I would go with unsweetened almond milk or unsweetened silk coconut milk, not the stuff that you find in the can, but the stuff that you find in the fridge or off the shelf in the supermarket. Now, if you want a richer higher carb meal, then I would go with oat milk or whole milk, which would have even more protein. So, the milk is really up to you, whatever you enjoy! And if you are dairy-free you can use almond milk.
The second ingredient is flaxseeds. Make sure to use flaxseed meal or ground flax seed instead of whole flax seeds. But if you happen to only have whole flax seeds on hand, then you can make your own ground flax seed by simply processing it in a blender or food processor until you get a fine texture.And the reason that we use a flaxseed meal instead of whole flax seeds, is because it’s easier to digest and the body is able to absorb the nutrients from it easier.
And last but not least is the sweetener. I use medjool dates to sweeten the pudding in this recipe, but you can also use honey or maple syrup or brown sugar, or even you could mash some bananas and add it in there. So it’s really up to you!
Cindy: Sounds really versatile. I will say that in my house, when we made it, we used regular milk. I’ve made it with skim milk and 2% milk, and both of them turned out great. I used a little bit less and we’ll put this in the recipe. Remember the recipes found in foodsensitivitykitchen.com/episode048. So you can find the whole recipe that Maryam has developed there as well as instructions and pictures. But when I made it with regular milk, I used a little less flex, and Maryam’s going to talk about that, but I I’ve done it with regular milk, Maryam’s done it with oat milk. So there’s a great variety here. Also, when I’ve made it with sweetener, I used a teaspoon of maple syrup because I didn’t want to dirty my blender. I was lazy. So you can do it however you want. Tell us a little bit about what gives this recipe its flavor.
Maryam: So the flaxseed meal already has a naturally nutty flavor, which makes the pudding tastes unexpectedly delicious without even adding any additions. But what’s nice about this recipe is you can make it any flavoring you like, you can add cinnamon and peanut butter, or you can add banana and blueberries, so you can make it any flavor you’d like. Flax seeds have a very mild taste. So that’s what’s great about this.
Cindy: And they have a mild taste unless you do what I do, which is don’t do this! I had some old flaxseeds. You remember a stored flaxseeds I’ve told you all before. Store your flaxseed seed in the freezer because it helps keep it fresh longer. It helps keep those omega-3 fats from going rancid. Well, mine was stored in my freezer, but it was a couple years old and we had a funny aftertaste and I brought it to people to try. And they’re like, some people didn’t taste the aftertaste, but half the people did. And they were like, Ooh, this is not very good. It was totally my fault. It was because of the flax seeds. So, you know, you might want to keep your flaxseeds, even in the freezer, only up to maybe a year, you know, not two years like me. Get rid of the old stuff. I had some for breakfast this morning, my flavor- I sprinkled a little cinnamon in, but even without that, if you use maple syrup, like I did, I tasted a little tiny bit of maple flavor, which was kind of nice too. So, walk us through making this recipe!
Maryam: You are going to use a blender. If you are using medjool dates, you’re going to add two tablespoons of flaxseed meal, one third a cup of oat milk or whatever milk you prefer, and then the medjool dates. You’re going to blend it until it’s smooth, which should only take a minute or two. And then you’re going to pour it into a small container and refrigerate it for one to two hours or overnight for the mixture to set into a pudding-like consistency. And then right before serving, you can top with additional toppings. My personal favorite is Greek yogurt. The savoriness from the Greek yogurt combined with the sweet nutty flavor from the budding makes it an amazing combination. And the Greek yogurt also adds more protein. So it makes it a more filling meal. Now, if you don’t want to use a blender, you can skip the medjool dates. And like Mrs. Sullivan just mentioned, you can use honey or maple syrup. So all you have to do is combine the three ingredients, give them a little whisk and that’s it. Super easy, super simple. Will take you five minutes to prepare.
Cindy: It is really, truly that easy. It is not a hard recipe. It is wonderful. Your kids can make it for themselves if they can measure. It’s really, really easy. And I will even tell you it’s better, it’s thicker if you let it sit for one to two hours, but I had some for breakfast this morning and I didn’t make it last night like I was planning to. So I threw it on my counter. I mixed it up. I did a few other things in the kitchen. I came back and 15 minutes later it was ready to eat. So you don’t even have to refrigerate it. It does get thicker, but if you just want to do it quickly and eat it, you can do that too. So it’s really versatile. Any other tips for preparing flex seed pudding?
Maryam: Yes. You may adjust the final texture of the pudding by changing the amount of milk that you add. If you like a thinner consistency of a pudding, then you can add more milk. Or if you want a thicker consistency, then you can add less milk. So it’s really up to you. But I would recommend if you want a thicker consistency to add only one fourth of cup, instead of one third a cup, and then if it was too thick, then you can easily adjust it by adding more milk. Instead, if it was too thin to begin with, then it would be harder to reverse that. Also, you can make a batch of this pudding and let it sit in the fridge for up to five days. So you can have that breakfast ready for the whole week.
Cindy: And also it might depend. I was just thinking, as we were talking. If you add a liquid sweetener, like a maple syrup, right? You might need a little less milk if you want a thicker pudding, like a quarter cup versus you are using dates and you’re using a third of a cup because the dates add some thickness too. Right? Maryam: That Is a very good point!
Cindy: Okay. Now the fun part! Tell us how you like to serve this, or maybe not even how you like, you tell us how you like to serve it, but give us some other ideas too.
Maryam: For the toppings. This is the fun part you can add whichever topics that you like. So, in my recipe that we’ve posted on the website, I added bananas, cocoa nibs, sunflower seeds, and Greek yogurt and that was an amazing combination! But I also could do banana and peanut butter and cinnamon, or you could do pineapple and mango. That could be another one for a more summer vibe. So it’s really up to you with the toppings and the toppings are great because you add more vitamins, more nutrients, more superfoods like goji berries and chia seeds. So yeah!
Cindy: I had mine with mango this morning. It was luscious. Maryam: Mango sounds so good with this recipe. Cindy: It was wonderful. Okay. Talk to us a little bit about why would somebody want to make this recipe? Well, obviously we’ve told them it’s quick, It’s easy, there’s few ingredients, but talk to us a little bit about the nutrients in this recipe, Maryam.
Maryam: Flax seed is a super food full of plant-based protein, fiber vitamins, antioxidants minerals, and healthy fats. Only one tablespoon of whole black seed contains 2,315 milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids, which surpasses the daily recommended amount. So if you are not a fan of fish, then this is a great alternative to get in your omega-3 fatty acids. Also, one serving of this recipe provides 30% of your recommended daily fiber intake and 20% of your recommended calcium intake. So this is an amazing recipe to get in lots of good nutrients.
Cindy: It is an amazing recipe. 30% of your fiber in one recipe is one serving of a food is amazing, right? that’s great! As well as the omega 3s. I think this is a recipe you all will want to try, just make sure your flax seed is ground, right! And keep it in the freezer. Or like Maryam mentioned earlier, you can use whole flaxseeds, but you’ll have to grind them either in a spice grinder, a blender, or something to grind them up before you use them. So this is a recipe all of you will want to try whether you are vegan or not. You know that I’m not vegan. Although we eat a lot of vegan things in my house, but you can use regular milk, you can use oat milk, you can use whatever kind of milk you want. So, I am so grateful Maryam for your help all semester, and especially for this great recipe that people can make and try. So thank you so much for being here today.
Maryam: Absolutely. It was my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. And it has been great working with you.
Cindy: It’s been wonderful. And so thanks so much for you for tuning in today for listening. I hope you have a wonderful day, keep cooking to enable those you love to flourish, and here’s another recipe to help them flourish that’s quick and easy. Have a wonderful day. Bye-bye.
Resources and Research
Other Omega 3 Recipes on FoodSensitivityKitchen.com
High Protein Chia Seed Pudding
Research
National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements
Omega-3 Fatty Acids Fact Sheet for Health Professionals
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Omega3FattyAcids-HealthProfessional/
Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Their Health Benefits
Home Annual Review of Food Science and Technology Volume 9, 2018
Shahidi, pp 345-38
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-food-111317-095850#_i16
The 7 Best Plant Sources of Omega-3 Fatty Acids Written by Rachael Link, MS, RD — Updated on July 17, 2017
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-plant-sources-of-omega-3s#TOC_TITLE_HDR_2
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Agricultural Research Service Food Data Central
https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/170554/nutrients
Why The Health Is This Good For Me?
FROM THE WEBMD ARCHIVES
By Keri Glassman, MS, RD, CDN
https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/why-are-chia-seeds-good-for-me
