Lately, I’ve been craving banana pudding. This is very strange since I’ve never been particularly fond of banana pudding in the past. I kept talking myself out of making it, but today I gave in…sort of. I made individual banana pudding parfaits instead. And I made them healthy! I started with sugar-free, fat-free banana cream pudding mix, added some skim milk, fat-free greek yogurt, and fat-free cool-whip. I layered the yummy pudding mixture with some sliced banana and some mini nilla wafers. They turned out super cute and delicious.
On a side note, all greek yogurt is not created equal. Some brands are so tangy I can barely choke them down and this nearly turned me against greek yogurt…until I found Fage brand. It is so thick, creamy and delicious – without the super tang of other brands. (Some of the tangiest brands I’ve found are Dannon, Oikos, and Yoplait) I kept buying these other brands and trying to eat it because, “it’s so healthy and has so much protein, yada yada yada“. Whatever, I think they taste like crap – even the ones with fruit. However, Fage plain fat-free greek yogurt is so good I can eat it without a bunch of added sugar! Because it really crosses over into un-healthy when the second ingredient is sugar and you still don’t like the way it tastes ;). So if you’ve been iffy about greek yogurt, try to find Fage or Olympus brand. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Enjoy!
Healthy Banana Pudding Parfaits
2-3 bananas, sliced
~60 mini nilla wafers
1/2 small box sugar-free fat-free instant banana cream pudding mix
3/4 cup skim milk
1/2 cup fat free plain greek yogurt (I used Fage brand)*
1/2 cup fat-free cool-whip
1. Combine pudding mix and milk in medium bowl. Whisk 2 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes, until soft-set. Stir in greek yogurt until combined. Fold in cool-whip.
2. Place 4-5 wafers in the bottom of each of 4 small (6 oz) dishes. Top with a layer of banana slices. Spoon a couple tablespoons of the pudding mixture over the banana layer. Repeat 2 more times. Garnish with a small amount of cool-whip, if desired. Store in the refrigerator.
Notes:
1. Makes 4 (6 oz) servings. I found 6 oz to be a rather large serving and only ate about half, but these were the smallest serving dishes I had.
2. If you wanted this to be even healthier, just decrease the amount of wafers you use since the wafers are the least healthy part of the dessert.
3. If you don’t have mini wafers, just use regular. I used mini because they’re cuter (!!) and because they fit in my dish better, but you could certainly just chop regular ones to fit.
4. If you don’t like greek yogurt, you can substitute reduced fat sour cream.
