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Banana pudding is a creamy and sweet dessert bursting with aromatic banana flavors. Most scratch-made puddings are custard bases that blend eggs and cream or sweetened condensed milk. However, our recipe for classic banana pudding uses vanilla pudding mix and whole milk as the base. While milk and eggs have a decent amount of protein, it’s no match for the unlikely ingredient that’s the foundation of our protein-packed banana pudding recipe. Our recipe developer swapped the traditional dairy and eggs for cottage cheese due to its incredibly high protein content.
Thanks to the cottage cheese, this pudding has a whopping 20 grams of protein per serving. But cottage cheese is more than a high-protein dairy product; it also has a deliciously creamy flavor with a slight tanginess that pairs perfectly with banana. If you’re concerned about the lumpy texture from all those little cheese curds, don’t worry; we put the cottage cheese in a blender until smooth.
Furthermore, while many banana pudding recipes use vanilla pudding mix, this cottage-cheese based pudding uses ripe bananas as flavor agents and sweeteners. So you get a pudding that actually tastes like bananas. A dash of vanilla extract, maple syrup, and cinnamon round out the flavor profile of the pudding with rich aromatic sweetness and a baking spice finish. Plus, blending all of these ingredients together is essentially a one-pot recipe that results in the smoothest, creamiest texture. One taste of this well-balanced pudding will make a cottage cheese fan out of anyone.
Serving tips and more cottage cheese desserts to try
Protein-packed banana pudding will satisfy your sweet tooth, satiate your hunger, and fulfill your protein goals with each spoonful. Recipe developer Michelle Bottalico elevates her cottage cheese banana pudding by serving it parfait-style, layering pudding with banana slices and crushed vanilla cookies in a tall parfait serving glass. Nilla wafers are the classic banana pudding pairing, but you can always switch things up with other cookie flavors. For example, you could crush Nutter Butters for an equally crunchy yet deliciously nutty complement to the banana pudding.
If you’d rather not add extra sugar, you can sprinkle roasted peanuts or a drizzle of all-natural crunchy peanut butter over the fresh banana slices. Since the protein-packed banana pudding calls for cinnamon, you can bring out the baking spice even more by swapping Nilla wafers for snickerdoodle cookies. For a more tropical garnish, you can add toasted coconut; we ranked Aldi’s Beton’s toasted coconut cookies as some of our favorites.
Not a banana pudding fan? You can still use our cottage cheese hack to pack protein into other creamy pudding recipes. For example, we make cottage cheese the foundation for this citrusy cottage cheese chocolate mousse recipe, swapping bananas for cocoa powder and orange zest (maple syrup and vanilla extract are still part of the equation). If you’re looking for the best cottage cheese brand, we recommend Breakstone’s cottage cheese.
