Warrior Breakfast Pudding: When a Little Aspen Inspiration Comes Home
There are certain foods you hear about once and immediately think, ‘Well, I need to try that.’
My daughter recently stayed at The Little Nell in Aspen and came home raving about something called Warrior Pudding, which she loved having for breakfast each morning during their stay.
The ingredient list alone caught my attention: quinoa, chia seeds, oats, hemp hearts, coconut milk, golden raisins and pepitas.
Basically, all sorts of wonderfully wholesome things thrown together into one creamy breakfast.
Naturally, I wanted to recreate it.
Also naturally, I am apparently incapable of simply recreating something and leaving well enough alone.
I am constantly thinking, What if I added a little of this? What would make it creamier? Could it use a little crunch? Perhaps some cinnamon? Pecans? A few blueberries?
And that is how The Little Nell’s Warrior Pudding became Honey’s Warrior Breakfast Pudding.
My Version of Warrior Breakfast Pudding
The first version I made was good, but it wasn’t quite as creamy or delicious as I had imagined when my daughter described it. So I started tinkering.
I added ultra-filtered whole milk for extra creaminess and protein, bumped up some of the seeds, added pecans, cinnamon, vanilla and just enough maple syrup to give it a little sweetness.
And there it was.
Creamy, nutty, chewy, slightly sweet and full of different textures. The golden raisins soften overnight, the pecans and pepitas give it crunch, and a handful of blueberries on top adds a lovely little burst of freshness.
Ingredients
1 cup cooked and completely cooled quinoa
¾ cup uncooked old-fashioned rolled oats
½ cup chia seeds
½ cup hemp hearts
1¼ cups unsweetened coconut milk beverage — the refrigerated kind, not canned
1½ cups ultra-filtered high-protein whole milk
½ cup golden raisins
¼ cup pumpkin seeds/pepitas
⅓ cup chopped pecans
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
For serving: additional coconut milk as needed, toasted pepitas, chopped pecans and fresh blueberries.
Make It
Combine everything in a large bowl or container and stir very well.
Cover and refrigerate overnight. The chia seeds and oats will absorb quite a bit of liquid as they sit, so give everything another good stir in the morning. If you’d like it creamier or a little looser, simply stir in another splash of coconut milk.
Spoon into a bowl and finish with toasted pepitas, chopped pecans and a few blueberries.
Then enjoy.
A Word About the “Small Batch”
When I originally started playing with this recipe, I referred to it as a small test batch.
It is not.
😂
This makes several servings, which turned out to be one of my favorite things about it.
Make it once and you’ve essentially meal-prepped breakfast for much of the week. Scoop out what sounds good each day and add your toppings.
Or don’t eat it for breakfast at all.
I’ve already discovered that about ⅓ cup makes a rather lovely little late-night snack. It could also be an easy pre-workout bite when you want something substantial without sitting down to an entire meal.
Breakfast. Snack. Pre-workout fuel. Dessert-ish something while standing in front of the refrigerator at night.
There are no Warrior Pudding rules.
Make It Your Own
And because there are absolutely no rules around here, today’s Warrior Pudding became part of a rather lovely Saturday breakfast.
I served a scoop alongside two Trader Joe’s protein pancakes—the refrigerated ones that come in a four-pack—with fresh blueberries, a drizzle of Drizzy peanut butter and a little maple syrup.
And it was delicious.
Side note: that Drizzy peanut butter has become one of those handy little pantry staples that makes almost anything feel a bit more special. A drizzle over pancakes, fruit, oatmeal or breakfast pudding and suddenly you’ve made an effort—even when you really haven’t.
That’s what I love about having something like this pudding already waiting in the refrigerator.
It doesn’t dictate the meal; it simply gives you a delicious, nourishing starting point.
Have a bigger bowl for breakfast. Add a small scoop beside pancakes. Grab ⅓ cup for a late-night snack. Have some before a workout. Top it differently every day.
You do you. No rules.
Healthy eating doesn’t have to look perfect, and it certainly doesn’t have to be boring.
Sometimes it’s quinoa and chia seeds sitting quite happily beside pancakes, peanut butter and maple syrup.
And frankly, I think that’s a pretty lovely place for them to be.
And Then There Was the Quinoa Situation
I should probably mention one tiny detail for anyone who doesn’t cook quinoa particularly often.
When a recipe says one cup cooked quinoa, that is not the same thing as one cup dry quinoa.
Quinoa expands considerably when cooked.
Fortunately, if you find yourself with an excess of cooked quinoa, this is hardly a culinary tragedy.
Cooked quinoa freezes beautifully, so you can portion your leftovers into one-cup containers and freeze them. The next time you’re craving Warrior Breakfast Pudding, you’ve already done part of the work.
Or use the extra quinoa during the week.
Swap it for rice in a simple vegetable stir-fry.
Make an easy quinoa bowl with roasted vegetables, chickpeas, feta and a lemony dressing. Add some shrimp or salmon.
Toss it into a salad.
You can even crisp it up for a little crunch.
Suddenly, your extra quinoa starts looking suspiciously like meal prep.
Healthy Food Should Still Be Delicious
I think sometimes we make healthy eating unnecessarily complicated—or unnecessarily joyless.
Food doesn’t have to fit neatly into categories of good or bad, and nourishing yourself certainly doesn’t have to mean eating something you don’t particularly enjoy.
Play with your food.
Change the milk. Add more cinnamon. Leave out the raisins. Throw some berries on top.
Toast the pecans. Make it sweeter or don’t. Have it for breakfast at 7 a.m. or eat a little bowl at 9 p.m.
Take inspiration from a beautiful breakfast at a hotel in Aspen and then bring it home and make it completely your own.
That’s half the fun.
And if you cook three times as much quinoa as you need?
Well…
Apparently you’re having quinoa bowls this week.
🍯 Honey Note
Sometimes the best recipes—and perhaps some of the best parts of life—begin with someone saying, “You have to try this.”
Take the inspiration, bring it home, add a little of yourself and see what happens.
There doesn’t always have to be a perfect recipe.
Sometimes it’s more fun to taste, tinker and trust yourself along the way.
With a full refrigerator and a fun new breakfast pudding recipe,
🍯 Honey
