Basically, do you torture your friends?
See, in my family, there’s this killer recipe for banana pudding. I’m not super crazy about plain packaged pudding, but I’ll certainly doctor it up and enjoy. Still, I wouldn’t expect to LOVE banana pudding ever. This stuff is thick and sweet and packed with fruit, though. There’s a sweet graham cracker crust. And it’s topped with Cool Whip (which I do like a lot). It makes a 9×13 pan and I could devour half of it in one go, no problem.
But it’s a secret recipe. Seriously?
Personally, I’ve never really understood the big deal with secret recipes. I feel like a lot of people find cooking intimidating enough as it is. I certainly don’t want to make it any more unapproachable. Quite the opposite, in fact. Everybody can cook!
Well, I don’t think this pudding requires actual cooking, but you get the point.
The other point is that I was craving banana pudding earlier this week. I don’t even know the last time I had the real thing, but suddenly I couldn’t get it out of my head. I put my creativity to work and tried a few different takes on single-serving banana pudding, and this was my favorite. It’s so easy that I feel silly calling it a recipe; it’s more of a formula. And it just so happens to be pretty freaking healthy.
It has a whole bunch of vitamins and fiber from fruit, protein and calcium from the Greek yogurt, some sweetness and crunch from the cereal, and the cream cheese makes it, well, creamy. (I’d like to add that I’m not a huge fan of cream cheese on its own, but I think it tones down the tang of the yogurt and adds a lot to the texture here!)
So, ta-da, it’s breakfast banana pudding, and I’m sharing it with you. Hopefully this holds you over till I can find a way to share the real thing. 😉
- 5.3 oz. container Greek yogurt*
- 2 T. whipped cream cheese
- 1 ripe banana, sliced
- 1/2 c. raspberries
- 1/2 c. blueberries
- 1/4 c. cereal**
- Add the cream cheese and about half of the sliced banana to the container of Greek yogurt and mix well with a spoon.
- If you want to be all fancy-like, layer about half of the yogurt mixture on the bottom of a jar or glass. Sprinkle a little of the cereal on top, followed by about half of each of the berries and a few slices of banana. Repeat layers until all the ingredients are included in your parfait.
- Alternatively, if you don't care about the presentation (no judgment here), add the yogurt mixture, cereal, berries, and remaining banana slices to a big bowl.
- Dig in!
- *I've done this two ways, and both are fabulous. You can use vanilla Greek yogurt plain and this tastes awesome. Or, if you want some extra staying power or simply don't want the added sugar of flavored yogurt, use plain and add about 1/2 T. creamy cashew butter and 1/4 t. vanilla extract to the yogurt and cream cheese mixture.
- **Also up to your discretion! I've used sweeter cereals (uh, Cinnamon Toast Crunch would be so good), but I've also used Multigrain Cheerios and Fiber One. I bet granola would be good, too. Mix it up!
- ***Nutrition facts not included because it depends on everything from your yogurt to your cereal to the size of your banana.
Pin for later!
Do you have any secret recipes?
Haha, to my family, all my recipes are “secret”. No one cares at all about what’s in it. As long as nothing “weird” is in it (what does that mean???), they could care less and are so disinterested in food and cooking, hahahaha!
Hahaha I guess that’s a different kind of secret recipe ?
I call my chickpea brownies a secret recipe at work, mostly because no one believes me about what’s in them. I have started making my own nut butter and have a proven strategy, but I wouldn’t call it a secret. I find that things taste good if I follow the recipe. It’s when people try to use like gluten free flour or add protien powder and take out other things that the recipe doesn’t work. It’s like, just follow the directions!
Developing recipes and altering them is definitely a challenge! But yes, if you follow recipes correctly, I don’t think you can mess ’em up too badly!
I love the versatility of this recipe! You could never get bored with it, and pudding for breakfast just sounds festive and fun 🙂
Thanks, Julia! It’s definitely more a formula that you can tweak to your liking than a set-in-stone recipe!
This looks really good and thanks for sharing. It seems like you can tweak it a lot to meet your personal preference too.
Exactly – I love it when you have a good base recipe that you can switch up according to your mood! Thanks for reading 🙂
Love the you made banana pudding healthier! Perfect for breakfast 🙂
Thank you!
The pics look great and I want to try this!!!
Thanks, Kristy! I’d love to know if you give it a try 🙂
🙂