Chocolate Chia Goodness Pudding (A Portable, Instant Breakfast, Perfect for Travel)

If you can’t tell, I am a planner. You don’t magically become successful. You plan for success.

During one of my trips last year, I discovered a lovely portable breakfast idea: Ruth’s Chia Goodness. Basically it is an instant breakfast featuring chia seeds, nuts and seeds with flavours. Just add water, wait 10 minutes, and voila! Healthy breakfast is served!

Ruth has a few flavours, but I wanted to recreate the Chocolate version for this roadtrip.

The ingredient list: Chia (salvia hispanica L.), buckwheat, hulled hemp seeds, organic cacao, raw organic cacao nibs, dates, almonds, evaporated cane juice, Celtic sea salt.

Familiar with my other breakfast puddings with oats and almond milk (chocolate cherry overnight oats and gingerbread pumpkin overnight oats), I knew I had to get rid of the fresh ingredients and milk. Oats need a long overnight soak, so to make this an instant breakfast, hemp seeds and almonds seemed like a great idea. Buckwheat couldn’t possibly be used raw, though, in its uncooked form. I turned to dehydrated buckwheat, instead. With its crunch, they added the perfect textural foil to the gummy chia seeds. The cocoa nibs and Amazing Grass added the malty chocolate goodness that left me with my morning chocolate fix. Ruth has added sugar in hers, but I felt like this was perfect without it. Sometimes I add fruits to it as well. Apples, mangoes, kiwi.. I don’t know any fruit that don’t pair well with chocolate. 😉

Do you have any great travel-friendly breakfast recipes?

This is my submission to this week’s Healthy Vegan Friday.

Chocolate Chia Goodness Pudding
Inspired by Ruth’s Chocolate Chia Goodness

1.5 tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp buckwheaties (see below)
1 tsp hemp seeds
1 tsp slivered almonds, crushed
1 tsp raw cacao nibs
1 scoop Chocolate Amazing Grass powder (or chocolate protein powder, or possibly 1 tbsp cocoa powder)
5-6 tbsp water (or nondairy milk)
+fruit, chopped, if desired (optional)

1. Mix all ingredients together and let sit at least 5 minutes (overnight is good, too). Stir and add more water if needed.

Serves 1.

Buckwheaties
Adapted from Choosing Raw

1 cup raw buckwheat groats, rinsed

1. In a medium-sized bowl, soak rinsed buckwheat in 3-4 cups of water for 12 hours. Drain water and replace with fresh water. Allow to soak another 12 hours.

2. Remove water and rinse buckwheat. They will have become plump but not sprouted (keep rinsing and changing the water if you want to sprout them– but don’t do that here).

3. Place the rinsed buckwheat in a single layer onto a Teflex-lined dehydrator sheet and dehydrate at 115F for 6-10 hours, or until dry and crispy. Store in an air-tight container at room temperature.

Makes more than 1 cup.