Raspberry Graham Cottage Cheese Pudding

 

Alright, this post is a bit long-winded, so feel free to skip right down to the unexpected breakfast dish. For the rest of you, have you heard of cottage cheese ice cream? I started seeing variations on the recipe over the summer and wanted to try it – it’s got less fat and more protein than regular ice cream, so I figured I could get behind that! 

I started with this chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, but did not like the result. It made too much cookie dough for the amount of ice cream; I had to use the whole pouch of vanilla pudding mix because otherwise the ice cream would have been bland AF, but the ice cream was too hard when taken right from the freezer, but then had an unpleasant pudding-y texture when thawed a bit. It just wasn’t my jam. It was ugly as sin, too, so I’m not posting pictures. 

Then I tried raspberry graham cracker ice cream. Once I puréed the cottage cheese mixture, I tasted it and swooned! That was fantastic stuff right there; I seriously considered just eating it straight. I then used my ice cream maker to freeze the cottage cheese mixture properly, so that I did not disturb it once it was layered with the raspberries and graham crackers. Once it was frozen, I had to let it thaw a bit before serving it. And it was fine. I mean, it was good, but the mixture by itself had been so great. And neither my husband nor my kids were big fans. So I did the only logical thing: I put the leftovers in the fridge overnight and had them as pudding for breakfast – it was heaven! 

I made it a few times since then, using maple syrup instead of granulated sugar and reducing the amount (since it’s not eaten frozen, you really don’t need as much). Obviously, this is not a low-calorie food, but it’s got calcium and protein, so there’s that. Make sure you purée the cottage cheese to a very smooth consistency. The version below is mine. 

16 oz. lactose-free cottage cheese

1 pint raspberries, divided 

2 Tbsp. maple syrup 

1 Tbsp. brown sugar 

½ tsp. vanilla extract 

3 rectangular graham crackers, crumbled 

With an immersion blender (or a food processor), purée the cottage cheese, half of the raspberries, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla until the mixture has NO visible chunks remaining. 

Chop the remaining raspberries. 

In two mason jars, layer the cottage cheese mixture with chopped raspberries and crumbled graham crackers. Enjoy!