Dairy-Free Pudding Cookies Recipe in Various Fun Flavors

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.

Pistachio Dairy-Free Pudding Cookies

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

8 mins

Total time

18 mins

I first made this recipe in my junior high home ec class, and recently made it again in different flavors with my kids. Most pudding mixes are dairy free, but don't use a sugar-free one in this recipe (it causes bitter results). Several varieties of Bisquick (including the Original) are also dairy free, but I often use my homemade version.

Author: Sarah Hatfield

Serves: 16 to 17 cookies

Ingredients

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)

Instructions

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.