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This healthy rice pudding recipe is a perfect, lightened-up version of the creamy rice pudding recipe you grew up loving. It’s vegan, gluten-free, and refined sugar-free and is hands down the perfect hearty dessert!

Rice Pudding Recipe Healthy and Vegan

Healthy Rice Pudding

So many of you have requested a lightened up rice pudding recipe, and we worked hard to make it just perfect for you! I didn’t grow up eating rice pudding but while we were testing this recipe, I quickly fell in love with the hearty yet delicate, sweetened-just-right dessert.

This rice pudding recipe is:

  • Creamy
  • Hearty
  • Indulgent yet lightened up
  • Warming
  • Packed with cinnamon and raisins
  • Perfectly sweetened

Vegan rice pudding in a pot.

Vegan Rice Pudding Ingredients Needed

  • Long Grain White Rice (we prefer Jasmine)
  • Milk (we recommend boxed coconut milk, but you can also use almond or really any other type of milk)
  • Sea Salt
  • Maple Sugar (this is easy to swap out with your sweetener-of-choice)
  • Raisins
  • Cinnamon Sticks and Ground Cinnamon

Healthy rice pudding with almond milk

Can you make rice pudding with cooked rice?

You can, but we prefer not to cook it the way! You may need less liquid if doing so.

What rice should you use?

You should use white rice. You can use long-grain aromatic rice (like basmati or jasmine) which will give the unique flavor and perfect texture that we love. If you use short or medium-grain white rice (like Arborio) your rice pudding will be more thick and chewy.

How Long to Cook It

The size of the pan can change the evaporation time of the liquid depending on the type of rice you use so if you are finding a lot of liquid leftover, increase the temperature of the heat and cook for a bit longer.

Healthy Rice Pudding Recipe

How to Reheat Rice Pudding

Rice pudding will keep well in the refrigerator for up to two days. To reheat, place back in a saucepan with a touch of milk and heat on low until hot.

If you like this gluten-free dessert recipe, try some more of our favorites:

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Healthy Rice Pudding (Vegan)

4.89 from 17 votes
This healthy rice pudding recipe is a perfect, lightened-up version of the creamy rice pudding recipe you grew up loving. It's vegan, gluten-free, and refined sugar-free and is hands down the perfect hearty dessert!
Servings 4
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 50 minutes
Total Time 55 minutes

Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 cup jasmine rice rinsed well and drained
  • 4 cups boxed coconut milk beverage or almond milk
  • 2 - 3" cinnamon sticks
  • Pinch fine sea salt
  • 1/4 cup maple sugar see notes for sub
  • 1/2 cup raisins
  • cinnamon to garnish

Instructions

  • In a medium sauce pan (see note), add rinsed and drained rice and add water just enough to cover the rice. Heat pan on medium. Once rice has reached a boil, turn heat to medium low and let water reduce for 10 minutes, or sooner if the liquid has already evaporated. Take care not to let the water evaporate out completely. If there is any excess water at the end of 10 minutes, drain it out.
  • Add coconut milk, cinnamon sticks and salt and bring up to a gentle simmer on medium to medium-low heat. Simmer, uncovered, for 25 minutes and stir the pan every few minutes to make sure the rice does not stick.
  • Add raisins and sugar, and turn the heat to low. Cook for an additional 15 minutes, uncovered, stirring frequently, until the rice has absorbed most of the liquid and it has thickened up.
  • Remove the cinnamon sticks. Serve warm or cold, with ground cinnamon sprinkled on top.

Notes

Make sure you are using the cartoon of the coconut milk beverage and not the canned variety. Alternatively you can use a different milk-of-choice such as almond or oat.
You can substitute maple sugar for coconut sugar but will change color slightly.
For our recipe we used a medium saucepan. Depending on the size pan you use, it may take less or more time for the liquid to evaporate.
Rice pudding will keep well in the refrigerator for up to two days. To reheat, place back in a saucepan with a touch of milk and heat on low until hot.
Update on 10/2018: After receiving comments that this recipe yielded rice pudding that was more liquid-y than readers expected, we went back and tested this recipe completely as written, with different pots and on different stovetops, and we can say 100% this recipe works if followed as written and resulted in rice pudding that was thick and creamy like you see here in the photos. If for some reason your rice pudding is taking more time to evaporate than the direction indicates, simply let the rice pudding evaporate for a bit more time. Also note that as the rice pudding cools it thickens up quite a bit as well, so don't overcook it! We stand by our ratio to 1/2 cup of rice to 4 cups of liquid, which results in a thickened and creamy rice pudding. Our advice always is that if it isn't thick enough for you for whatever reason, then keep cooking. Evaporation will do its job and thicken it up eventually as the liquid is cooked off.

Nutrition

Serving: 4gCalories: 160kcalCarbohydrates: 37.4gProtein: 2.3gFat: 0.7gSodium: 95mgFiber: 1.7gSugar: 12.2g
Author: Lexi


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Comments

  1. 5 stars
    Made this in my rice cooker and it’s REALLY tasty. I used almond milk and brown sugar since that’s what I had on hand. It does use a lot of milk compared to the rice so I might see if I can get away with adding a little more rice next time.

  2. Hi Lexi,
    Not a complaint but just want to let you know of a typo. In your update, you wrote ‘cartoon’ of milk. I think you meant carton.

  3. I’ve made this recipe 3 x now and it is a favorite of my husband’s. He grew up eating this at local diners in NYC and just loves this recipe. It’s a keeper! I used basmati rice as I have a huge bag of it. It came out fine. Yes, a little more liquid than I would have imagined but it is absorbed when it sits in refrigerator (hubby likes it cold). For the sweetness aspect, I use Coco Lopez cream of coconut 1/2 can and the rest milk.

  4. I made this recipe and followed it to a point, this is what I changed. I used 1/2 cup of left over canned coconut milk and the rest was Silk coconut milk unsweetened. I used coconut sugar and 2tsp of vanilla. I followed the recipe as written, I used jasmine rice which tends to be more sticky. The recipe turned out so yummy! We loved it!!

  5. When I was looking for rice pudding made with almond milk recipes, in the initial statement before clicking on your sight, it says 1 cup rice with 1qt. Almond milk. In the recipe, it calls for only half a cup of rice, maybe that is why my batch, after following your recipe, is very liquidy.

  6. Hello I’m trying this recipe now. I have found out I have so many new food allergies. If there’s a problem with thickness and consistency you can always try adding chia powder or chia seeds. I love making chia pudding also. I’m using rice milk so we’ll see. Thanks!

  7. 5 stars
    Wow, thank you for this! So easy and delicious! I was also baking cookies at the same time, so I have zero idea how long I cooked it! ? I just let it reduce until it looked ready.
    That being said, I added a cinnamon stick when I added the milk and used brown sugar instead of maple! So darn good! Was gonna add cut up dried mango but I couldn’t wait to eat it! ❤️❤️❤️

  8. 5 stars
    Hi! I used 20 ounces of almond milk. I wanted it thicker, I thick 20 – 24 ounces of milk is good for this recipe.

  9. 5 stars
    Made this last night for Cinco de Mayo and it turned out great! I used 1 can of coconut milk and 2 cups of soy milk and was VERY pleased with the results. Now that I’ve followed the instructions I can make it again and alter it a bit. I’d use less sugar going forward, and perhaps a splash of vanilla, but it needs no modifications to be great. You need to stir, lid off, and keep stirring often. This takes 50 minutes or so to make. If some people are finding it’s too liquidy, they need to allow for more time, and more stirring.

  10. I have to admit that this was the first time I’ve ever eaten rice pudding, but it was delicious! I will be making this again many more times. I did cook the rice/milk combination for 10 extra minutes to reduce the liquid to what I believe to be the right consistency. Can’t wait to share this with others!

  11. Maybe this was obvious to others, but I was cooking it covered, and realized after the liquid wasn’t evaporating that I needed to be cooking it uncovered. Might be why folks are saying it’s too liquid-y.

  12. 5 stars
    Disregard my comment whether the amount of almond milk is correct or not.
    The pudding turned out absolutely amazing.

    I used the same proportion jasmin rice, water, almond milk. Didn’t use maple syrup, raisons or cinnamon but added a spalsh of vanilla essence. It is perfect. It’s like the authors say: just let it sit for a bit longer, it’s creamy not soupy at all

  13. 4 stars
    Hi,

    just made this recipe. Super good! My one question is however whether 4 cups of almond milk are correct (which equals to 1 liter). The pudding is creamy for sure, but it seems a lot (I’ve let it simmer on a low heat for +30 min and am still going on to reduce the liquid).

  14. 5 stars
    I made this recipe yesterday for the first time and it is excellent! Used golden raisons and a splash of half and half since I was a little short on almond milk. I think the reason one person thought it had too much liquid is that she may have covered the saucepan during the 25 minute simmer. You have to let the steam escape for the pudding to become concentrated. I also learned this trick about making soup. If you don’t cover, the flavor will intensify and the soup will be much tastier.
    Nancy
    Oceanside, CA