Vanilla Pudding

The process of making vanilla pudding from scratch is surprisingly simple: heat the milk, add the thickener and egg yolks, and cook briefly. It takes only 20 minutes to prepare this classic vanilla pudding recipe—plus a few minutes to cool—and the ingredients are all likely in your pantry or fridge.

It won’t take long to master old-fashioned vanilla pudding. And once you do, it’s time to branch out to other pudding recipes with flavors like chocolate, butterscotch and lemon.

Vanilla Pudding Ingredients

Taste of Home

• Milk: Whole milk makes this pudding soft and smooth, and balances the taste of the egg. Expect a thinner pudding if you use 2% milk instead.
• Sugar: Granulated white sugar dissolves relatively quickly as you heat the milk without altering the creamy color of the pudding.
• Cornstarch: Cornstarch thickens the pudding and helps keep the eggs from scrambling.
• Egg yolks: Try to use egg yolks leftover from egg white-only recipes, like meringue. Leftover egg yolks last in the refrigerator for up to four days. If using fresh, whole eggs, the whites can also be kept in the fridge for four days.
• Vanilla extract: Vanilla is the primary flavor in this recipe, so use the real thing, not imitation vanilla.
• Butter: Butter smooths out the texture of the pudding. It also helps keep a skin from forming on the pudding’s surface as it cools.

Directions

Step 1: Heat the milk

Taste of Home

Add 2 cups of milk and the salt to a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Sprinkle the sugar on the milk but do not stir. Heat the milk over medium-high.

Step 2: Mix the thickener

Taste of Home

In a small measuring cup or bowl, quickly whisk the cornstarch with the remaining 1/2 cup of milk. Add the egg yolks and mix thoroughly

Editor’s Tip: Have this mixture ready and waiting when the rest of the milk comes to a boil so you can immediately pour it into the pan.

Step 3: Thicken the milk

Taste of Home

When the milk comes to a full boil, remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the cornstarch mixture to thicken the pudding. Return the saucepan to the medium-high heat and cook for one minute, stirring continuously.

Editor’s Tip: If the cornstarch mixture starts to curdle, the egg yolks might be too cold to add to the hot pudding in one go. If this happens, whisk a small portion of the hot pudding into the cornstarch mixture to slowly increase the temperature of the eggs, and then pour the tempered eggs into the saucepan and whisk to combine.

Step 4: Stir in vanilla and butter

Taste of Home

Remove the pudding from the heat and gently stir in the vanilla and butter. Pour the pudding into individual dishes. Serve the pudding warm.

Editor’s Tip: Enjoy warm vanilla pudding’s smooth, creamy texture by eating it within 15 minutes. Otherwise, store the pudding in the refrigerator.

Taste of Home

Recipe Variations

• Use a different extract or flavoring: Next to the vanilla on the store shelf, you’ll find all sorts of other extracts that can be used in pudding. Try almond, coconut or mint, or seek out specialty flavors like coffee or peach.
• Make chocolate pudding: After you add the cornstarch mixture, stir in about 6 ounces of finely chopped dark chocolate, leaving the saucepan on the heat until it melts completely. You can still stir in the vanilla extract at the end, or try another extract like raspberry or orange.
• Cut back the sugar: For less sweetness in the pudding, reduce the sugar by up to half. Less sugar won’t affect the final consistency.

How to Store Vanilla Pudding

This homemade vanilla pudding recipe tastes best when freshly made, so whip up a small batch and enjoy it straightaway. If you prefer your pudding chilled, press a layer of waxed paper or plastic wrap onto the surface of the pudding to keep the top from drying out and forming a skin. Refrigerate the pudding for a few hours until it’s cold.

To store pudding longer, transfer it into an airtight container, place waxed paper directly on the pudding’s surface, then move the container to the refrigerator.

How long does vanilla pudding last?

It’s fine to leave pudding at room temperature for up to two hours (unless it’s above 90°F in the house), but after that it must be refrigerated. Even chilled pudding tastes best the day it’s made. After a day or two, refrigerated pudding might start to turn watery under a firm top skin, but it will be edible for up to four days.

Can you freeze vanilla pudding?

We do not recommend freezing vanilla pudding. Even though the difference between custard and pudding is small, it’s enough to make custard the better choice for freezing. The cornstarch used to thicken pudding loses its power and becomes spongy when frozen and defrosted. This vanilla pudding recipe also has more milk and fewer eggs than the base used for frozen custard.

Vanilla Pudding Tips

Taste of Home

How do you remove lumps from homemade vanilla pudding?

Lumps will form in homemade pudding if the milk scorches or if the egg curdles in the hot milk. Watch the milk carefully during the initial heating to keep it from burning on the bottom—especially because you don’t stir—then remove it from the heat as soon as it reaches a boil. The egg and cornstarch mixture should be at least room temperature before you stir it into the hot milk. Then, once you add the egg and thickener, keep stirring so that the pudding firms up without lumps.

How do you prevent runny pudding?

Cornstarch is the best thickener for pudding because it only has to cook briefly. If you cook cornstarch too long, it loses its thickening ability, resulting in runny pudding.

The pudding will thicken as it cools, so refrigerating it for a few hours can help firm things up. Too long in the fridge, though, and the pudding will become runny again.

Undercooked egg yolks, condensation from steamy pudding that you covered too early, and stirring once the pudding has set can all lead to runny pudding, too.

How do you serve vanilla pudding?

Serve vanilla pudding on its own, perhaps with shaved chocolate or fresh berries on top. It can form the base for fancy desserts, too. Use homemade vanilla pudding in a trifle, which layers cubes of cake, pudding and fruit. Instead of reaching for a box of instant pudding mix, use this vanilla pudding recipe for decadent raspberry vanilla pudding parfaits.