Old Fashioned Tapioca Pudding Recipe

Tapioca pudding is a creamy, sweet dessert with a rich, starchy texture. The most old-fashioned recipe is plain or vanilla-flavoured and served either hot or cold.

However, this is one of those dishes everyone has had at least once, regardless of where they live. With a truly staggering number of ethnic preparations worldwide, there are so many variations of this simple dessert.

In our recipe, we'll show you our mum's tapioca pudding recipe with substitute ingredients you can use. We'll also share some key cooking tips so you don't end up with a too-thick or too-thin consistency. Once you're confident, you can try some variations at the end.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Cooking Tips
• Tapioca Pudding Recipe (Old Fashioned)
• What does it taste like?
• What Is Tapioca Pudding?
• Variations
• Calories

Ingredients

You'll only need five ingredients to make our old-fashioned tapioca pudding recipe.

• Full-fat milk
• White sugar
• Tapioca
• Eggs
• Vanilla extract
• Salt (optional)

While most of the items are pantry essentials, we'll go through some of them in detail.

Milk

The milk has two functions in this dish: first, it adds creaminess and second, it adds richness. However, the milky flavour is prevalent in the dish as well. For this reason, the type of milk used in the dish is critical. 

Skim milk is unacceptable as it makes the dish watery. Whole milk is the way to go. If you must use skim, add cream to it to add back some fat.

Other tricks we've tried are adding milk powder, sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, or mixing types of milk. Some even use vegan milk, which adds exciting and unique flavours to the dish. 

If you do not care about the intricacies of the dairy in tapioca pudding, we recommend using whole milk or whole milk and evaporated milk in a ratio of 2:1. 

Sugar

Sugar serves one singular purpose: adding sweetness. White sugar is the way to make a classic, traditional pudding. Unfortunately, brown sugar does not work well with milk and its simple flavours. In addition, it ruins the perfect milky white colour. 

However, there is always room for experimentation. For example, brown sugar can add a much-needed semi-sweet caramelisation if you're baking the pudding. Additionally, brown sugar will complement the flavours if you're adding spices. Our personal favourite is nutmeg.

We recommend white sugar unless you know what you are doing. Then, of course, if you don't have it, use what you do have.

Tapioca

Despite being the main ingredient, tapioca in this dish mainly adds texture. It has virtually no taste and is quite dull to look at, but it adds a wonderfully chewy and starchy texture. That's what makes tapioca pudding so addictive and such a classic. 

You can add this starchy ingredient in the form of powder or pearls. Tapioca pearls come in many different sizes: the largest ones are most famously known as boba pearls, while the smaller ones are often confused for sago.

However, this pudding's tiniest tapioca pearls get their moment in the spotlight. The tiny tapioca pearls are known as sago in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. Meanwhile, in India, this is known as Sabudana.

Therefore, try using the smallest size of tapioca pearl you can find. Don't even try substituting it with sago.

Eggs

Eggs are a common pudding ingredient. The egg yolk adds richness, while the egg white adds structure, and the proteins add texture.

If you are vegan, you can substitute these two qualities with a thickener like cornstarch or agar. As for the richness, you would be hard-pressed to find it anywhere else.

Vanilla

Vanilla is essential for adding flavour and fragrance to this dish. If you omit it, the tapioca pudding will taste like nothing, so don't skip it. 

Also, use the highest quality vanilla you can find. 

While some people don't include salt in their recipes, some salt goes well with vanilla and sugar. So, we include it in our recipe.

Cooking Tips

Check if your brand of tapioca pearls requires you to soak it before cooking, and do so if it does. It affects both texture and cooking time.

After a while, the tapioca pudding may start to thicken as water evaporates from it. To thin out its consistency, simply add a few tablespoons of milk and gently stir to mix.

Temper the eggs using the warm pudding before adding them to the mixture. To do this, add a few tablespoons of the warm pudding to a separate bowl with the eggs. Then, whisk the eggs together with the warm pudding until well-mixed. Only then should the tempered eggs be added to the pot with the rest of the mixture.

By tempering eggs, you stabilise them so that they act as a thickener for the pudding rather than just cooking by themselves, causing egg strands to form in the pudding.

You can store it in the fridge in an airtight container for 2 to 3 days. Make sure the pudding cools down first.

What does it taste like?

Tapioca pudding is sweet and creamy with a rich, starchy texture. Most recipes include some other form of flavouring since tapioca (while texturally complex) tastes like nothing. Vanilla and mango are common additions. 

Generally speaking, the simple, bare-bones flavour base means that almost anything can be added and incorporated beautifully. You can add fruit, spices, chocolate, caramel, anything your heart desires. If serving it cold, try making it like an ice cream sundae. Experiment.

What Is Tapioca Pudding?

Tapioca pudding is a creamy pudding that uses tapioca as the main ingredient. You can serve it cold, hot, warm or iced. It can be a set dessert or a liquid. Its versatility is why it is a staple in many cuisines worldwide. These countries include the US, the UK, Brazil, China, and Australia.

It is surprising how timeless and pervasive the flavours of tapioca, milk, and sugar are. However, many versions have additional flavourings and ingredients. In some recipes, even these four basic elements are not required.

In fact, most countries make tapioca pudding very differently. This is due to the respective cultures and ingredients available.

This dish gets a bad rep in the UK, in particular. Thanks to the spherical appearance of the tapioca balls, it is often called frogspawn or eyeball pudding.

This is probably due to the dish's association with subpar meals at schools. Indeed, this dish seems to be the refuge of picky eaters and ill people everywhere. By extension, it is consumed mainly by a demographic of people who will not appreciate it for what it is: a simple classic, open to interpretation and customisation. Tapioca pudding deserves better.

Variations

Here are some of our favourite variations of tapioca pudding. However, the possibilities are endless. 

Baked

This is a creme brulee-esque twist on this classic dessert. Before baking the pudding, many recipes instruct the sprinkling of demerara sugar on top of the surface. Additionally, the cooking time for the tapioca pearls before baking is drastically reduced.

Restaurants that serve this preparation warm feature a lovely textural contrast and crunch on the top and bottom. The baked tapioca pudding recipe also hints at caramel flavours from the sugar getting warm and crispy in the oven.

Vegan

Although two of the four classic ingredients in the classic recipe are not vegan (milk and eggs), there are ways to make the recipe vegan.

You can omit eggs while substituting milk for a plant-based option. As a result, you can create a heavenly vegan tapioca pudding that rivals the non-vegan one in terms of flavour. However, the texture might be slightly different. 

Coconut milk and cream are good choices. Tapioca pearls pair well with fruity and tropical flavours. However, the combination is so good that it surprises even the most seasoned vegan. Try ube pudding recipe.

Our recommended non-dairy milk in this recipe is soy milk. But any non-dairy milk will work well. There are no significant changes to the cooking method when making a vegan recipe. 

Without Eggs

If you are vegetarian or vegan, you will need to eliminate the eggs from the pudding. The eggs serve two purposes: first, they thicken the pudding to a luscious, creamy texture, and second, they add almost savoury richness to this sweet pudding. 

In the first context, a simple cornstarch slurry is an excellent substitute for eggs—the Great Thickener of all things thin and watery. 

The second purpose is much more difficult to fulfil without eggs. As a result, most vegan versions of this pudding lean on not having any richness. Instead, it is a refreshing lightness in this tapioca pudding. In some cases, it is just as good as the rich, luscious version. 

However, if you want that sumptuous smooth texture, try adding rice flour or agar powder instead. Of course, this will make the pudding thicker and less flowy. But it will also give you a nice solid mouthfeel, which might be just what you were looking for.

With Condensed Milk

Sweetened condensed milk is an easy way to add milky sweetness to many dishes. Many Asian cooks add sugar to milky drinks without applying heat.

As for tapioca pudding, it is an excellent shortcut. Especially if you want to serve the dish cold without ever heating it in the first place. However, its utility is diminished because tapioca pearls require cooking before being consumed properly. 

For best results, substitute half of the milk with sweetened condensed milk and reduce the sugar. When heated in this way, sweetened condensed milk develops a deeper, darker flavour that works well in a normally homogeneous dish. 

Calories

A small serving of only 100 grams of tapioca pudding contains 400 calories. This dish is comfort food, so it has a high-calorie count. 

The high-calorie density is due to the presence of tapioca, sugar and milk within it. Tapioca is commonly referred to as a source of empty calories in the health world because it has little nutritional value yet is very calorific.

However, you can somewhat reduce this calorie count by using less fatty milk and less sugar. But, unfortunately, this would fundamentally change the experience of the dish.

To that end, vegan tapioca pudding is much lower in calories without sacrificing flavours. Though it is not precisely similar to the classic version of the dish, which you might be familiar with, it is delicious in its own right. However, generally speaking, this dish is not what you should make if you are looking for something healthy.

We hope our recipe helped you find your appreciation for the often-ignored dessert champion that is tapioca pudding. This dessert is ripe for taking and making your own, and it welcomes mix-ins and alterations very well. So, if you haven't tried it yet, give it a shot. It is one of the easiest desserts to make and certainly a crowd-pleaser. Bon appetit.

If you gave our recipe a go, let us know how it turned out. Share photos of your homemade desserts by tagging us on Instagram @honestfoodtalks.