Tapioca pudding with chia seeds

Delicious, gluten-free and maybe a little unusual tapioca pudding with chia seeds and coconut. You can also prepare it with protein powder to customize the flavor of pudding and increase its protein content. I also recommend using coconut milk that is perfectly suitable for this recipe - since tapioca has a neutral flavor, the resulting taste of pudding depends a lot on the selected milk.

What is tapioca?

Tapioca basically is a light gluten-free starch with neutral flavor made from the root of the manioc plant (also known as yuca). You can buy tapioca in the form of flour (good for thickening sauces or soups) or in the form of tapioca pearls (suitable especially for puddings, desserts, fruit cups).

Starch is a complex carbohydrate whose digestion is gradual, and therefore energy from it is released gradually. This will fill you for a longer time than simple carbohydrates (fruits, honey, sweets ..). Our diet should content significantly bigger amounts of them than of simple sugars.

You can find tapioca in the form of flour or pearls in some organic food stores as well as in Asian food stores. Try this healthy, unconventional tapioca pudding. It looks great, and sprinkled with fruit, it will surely appeal to your children :)

Instructions

1. Put the tapioca pearls into a pot and pour with 1 cup of cold milk.
2. Let them sit for about an hour.
3. Then add another cup of milk to the pot, add chia seeds, vanilla extract, and cook with occasional stirring until pudding begins to boil.
4. Then we can add protein powder (which makes the pudding thicker even more and it will be enriched with extra protein) and let it boil for another 5 minutes.
5. Take pudding out of heat, add sweetener to taste and let it cool a little.
6. Finally divide pudding into the bowls and let it sit in the refrigerator for several hours.