This dairy-free pudding cookies recipe, along with the rolls I serve on Easter morning, both date back to my junior high home economics class. At the time, home ec. was a required course for everyone. So the teacher wisely focused on easy, crowd-pleasing dessert recipes during the cooking unit. The first time I made them was with chocolate pudding mix, but it’s fun to try them with different pudding flavors. One year we added pistachio pudding mix for a quick, green, St. Patrick’s Day dessert, and pistachio became a favorite flavor.
These simple cookies are a great Kids Can Cook recipe for beginning chefs. With just four ingredients and minimal prep, young chefs can be sharing these with their families in minutes. I hadn’t made these cookies in years, but I recently bought some pudding mix on sale and decided we’d make a couple batches. My family didn’t remember the recipe, but the cookies were a big hit, and the kids couldn’t believe how easy they were to make.
Yes! Most pudding mixes are dairy free, as are some store-bought baking mixes, such as Bisquick. Do not use sugar-free instant pudding mix, which will make the cookies taste bitter.
Special Diet Notes: Pudding Cookies
By ingredients, this recipe is dairy-free / non-dairy, nut-free, peanut-free, optionally soy-free, and vegetarian.
We haven’t tested this recipe egg-free as of yet, but powdered egg replacer, a chia egg, or flax egg should work well.
- 1 cup dairy-free baking mix, homemade or store-bought
- 1 small (3-ounce) package dairy-free instant pudding (we used Chocolate and Pistachio here; do not use sugar-free)
- ¼ cup non-GMO canola oil or mild-tasting oil of your choice
- 1 egg, beaten (see note above on egg-free)
- Preheat your oven to 350ºF.
- Mix all the ingredients together in a mixing bowl until the dough forms a ball.
- Using a tablespoon, measure out the dough into one-inch balls.
- Place the cookies about two inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
- Flatten each cookie with a fork in a crosshatch pattern, as you would for peanut butter cookies.
- Bake until the edges are light brown, about eight minutes.
- Let cool on the baking sheet for 1 to 2 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack.
- Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
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