Plum and Coriander Chia Pots with Skyr and Chopped Almonds
Chia seeds set overnight in thick skyr and milk with cinnamon and ground coriander, potted up and topped in the morning with chopped ripe plums and roasted almonds.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
Chia pudding made with milk alone is a thin, sliding thing, and I had more or less given up on it before I started making it with skyr. Whisk chia into skyr let down with a little milk and the seeds are thickening a base that already has body, rather than trying to build one from nothing. It sets in about four hours and holds a clean edge where the spoon has been. I make these in the evening in four small pots, and the only work left in the morning is chopping fruit and scattering almonds over the top.
Coriander is the reason this one tastes like itself. Ground coriander seed is warm the way cinnamon is warm, but there is a citrus note running underneath it that lands somewhere near orange peel, and against plums it is very good indeed. The fruit goes on top rather than through, chopped rather than sliced, so the juice pools and runs down into the chia in dark streaks while the pot stays pale underneath. Chopped almonds go on last, and they are there for the sound as much as the flavor, since everything else in the pot is soft. If chia pudding has ever struck you as one-note, texture is usually the thing that was missing.
These are small, dense pots and they are meant to be. Four of them take up one shelf in the door of the refrigerator and hold for four days, which covers most of a working week without any further thought. Plums run from late summer into early fall, and when they are gone I use halved grapes or a chopped firm pear and leave the coriander exactly where it is. A pot this thick has to be eaten slowly, which is half the point, and between the chia and the skyr it eats like a full breakfast rather than a small one.
Ingredients
- 3 3/4 cups plain nonfat skyr
- 1 1/4 cups 2% milk
- 3/4 cup chia seeds
- 4 ripe plums, pitted and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 1/2 cup roasted unsalted almonds, roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
Instructions
- Whisk the spiced base: Put the skyr, milk, cinnamon, and coriander in a large bowl and whisk until the color is even and the mixture pours in a thick ribbon. Ground spices sit on the surface at first and need working in, so keep going until you cannot see any dry specks floating on top.
- Stir in the chia, then stir again: Add the chia seeds and stir for a full minute, scraping the bottom of the bowl where they collect. Leave it for ten minutes, then stir hard a second time. That second stir is the whole secret: chia clumps as it starts to swell, and breaking those clumps up now is the difference between a smooth pot and one with dry pellets in the middle.
- Pot it up and chill: Divide the mixture among four small jars or glasses, smooth the tops, and cover them. Refrigerate at least four hours and preferably overnight. It is set when you can drag a spoon across the surface and the groove stays put rather than filling back in.
- Chop the plums in the morning: Cut each plum in half along the seam, twist the halves apart, and flick out the pit with the tip of a knife. Cut the flesh into half-inch pieces, skin and all, since the skin is where most of the tartness lives. Let the pieces sit for five minutes so they release a little juice.
- Top and serve: Spoon the plums and every drop of their juice over the pots, then scatter the chopped almonds across the top. Serve cold, with a long spoon, and tell people to dig to the bottom rather than eating the fruit off the top first.
Variations
- Grape and orange: Swap the plums for halved red grapes and add a little grated orange zest to the base, which pushes the coriander further toward citrus.
- Pear and clove: Use a chopped firm pear on top and add a pinch of ground cloves to the base for a version that suits colder weather.
- Sesame finish: Trade the almonds for two tablespoons of toasted sesame seeds, which gives the top a darker, more savory crunch.
- Looser pots: Add another half cup of milk to the base for a pudding you can drink from a wide-mouthed glass rather than eat with a spoon.
- Layered jar: Build it in a tall jar with alternating layers of chia base and chopped plums so every spoonful comes up striped.
Storage & Leftovers
The chia base keeps four days sealed in the refrigerator and thickens a little more each day. If day three feels stiffer than you want, stir a tablespoon of milk into the pot and give it two minutes to come back. The spice actually improves over the first two days as the coriander spreads out.
Top each pot the morning you eat it. Plums sitting on chia overnight go soft and grainy and lose the fresh bite that makes them worth putting there, and their juice soaks in until the whole surface is uniformly pink. Chopped fruit keeps a day in a closed container if you truly need to get ahead.
Almonds live in a jar on the counter, not in the refrigerator, where they take on moisture and lose their snap. Chop them in one go for the week and they stay crisp for about two weeks. Scatter them at the table rather than in the kitchen so they spend as little time on wet fruit as possible.
Notes & Tips
- Stir twice, ten minutes apart: This is the one step that decides whether the pots are smooth. Everything else in the recipe is forgiving and this is not.
- Whisk the spices into the liquid first: Cinnamon and coriander float and clump if they meet the chia before they meet the milk. Get them fully into the base while it is still thin.
- Buy plums that give slightly at the shoulder: Press near the stem, not the tip. A plum that yields there is ready, and one that yields everywhere is past it and will collapse when you chop it.
- Save the juice on the board: Tip it into the pots. That syrup is the sweetest part of the fruit and it is what streaks the surface so nicely.
- Use small, straight-sided glasses: Chia sets better in a deep, narrow pot than in a wide bowl, and a straight side lets you see the layers, which is half the pleasure of a pudding like this.
- Go easy the first time you use coriander here: A teaspoon and a half across four pots reads as warmth and citrus. Much more than that and it starts to taste like a curry, which is a different breakfast entirely.
Nutrition & Mindful Eating
- Chia, skyr, and plums are what make this pot work. The chia sets the whole thing and brings most of the fiber, the skyr underneath is where the protein and the calcium sit, and the plums keep a spoonful from being one flat note.
- Chia seeds swell to many times their size in cold liquid and hold onto it, which is the entire trick of the texture, and along with that gel come plant omega-3 fats, a great deal of fiber, and more calcium than a seed that small looks like it ought to have.
- Plums are tart right up against the skin and sweeter toward the middle, and that sharpness is what cuts a set pudding. The color runs deep red and purple for a reason, and the polyphenols behind it come along with the juice.
- Chopped almonds are the only crunch in the pot and they earn their place twice, once for the sound and once for the vitamin E and the calcium they carry into a spoonful that is otherwise entirely soft.
- Ground coriander and cinnamon do the talking here. Coriander seed has a citrus edge that arrives a second after the cinnamon does, and neither one needs heat to open up when it has a whole night in something cold and wet.
- As you eat, let the spoon go all the way to the bottom so plum juice and chia arrive in the same bite, and notice the point at which the pot has been enough.
Frequently Asked Questions
My pudding came out lumpy. What did I do wrong?
You almost certainly skipped the second stir. Chia clumps within the first ten minutes as the outer layer of each seed turns to gel and glues its neighbors together. Stir once when the seeds go in, wait ten minutes, then stir hard again, and the pots set smooth every time.
Can I make this with Greek yogurt?
Yes. Use plain nonfat Greek yogurt and cut the milk back to three quarters of a cup, since Greek yogurt starts looser than skyr and the chia has less work to do. The set will be slightly softer, which is not a problem, just a different spoonful.
The plums at my store are rock hard. Now what?
Leave them on the counter in a paper bag for two or three days and they will ripen and sweeten. If you need them today, use halved red grapes or a chopped pear, both of which are good with coriander. Hard plums are all skin and sourness and no juice.
How far ahead can I really make these?
The base can go four days, so Sunday night carries you to Thursday morning. What cannot go ahead is the fruit and the nuts. Think of it as one job on Sunday and about ninety seconds each morning, which is the whole reason to make them in pots.