Chocolate Semolina Pudding Recipe

This chocolate semolina pudding is milk thickened with semolina and flavored with cocoa powder, a little sugar, vanilla and, if you like, a few squares of dark chocolate. It takes about 15 minutes on the stove and fills 6 small bowls. The trick is to stir the dry ingredients together first and whisk them into warm milk in a thin stream, so the pudding stays smooth instead of lumpy.

My mother made semolina pudding for me as a kid, plain, never with chocolate. This is my version. Eat it warm and soft straight from the pan, or chill it until it sets thick enough to hold a spoon.

Six Bowls From One Liter of Milk

• Makes: 6 servings
• Time: 5 minutes prep, about 10 minutes on the stove, 4 to 5 of them stirring while it thickens
• The ratio: ½ cup (100 g) semolina to 4 cups (1 liter) milk
• Chocolate: 4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa, plus 2 oz (60 g) chopped dark chocolate if you want it richer
• Sweetness: ½ cup (100 g) sugar, which you can cut back if your chocolate is sweet
• Dairy free: works with almond, oat or coconut milk

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Fine Semolina, Coarse Semolina or Cream of Wheat?

Use fine semolina for this. It swells in a few minutes and gives a silky, almost custardy spoonful. Coarse semolina, the kind sold for couscous style dishes or semolina cake, needs much longer and keeps a sandy bite after a 5 minute cook.

Farina, sold in the US as cream of wheat, is also ground wheat and behaves almost the same, so you can use it cup for cup. Whichever you buy, it is wheat: this pudding is not gluten free.

Cocoa powder carries most of the chocolate flavor. The chopped dark chocolate is optional, and it changes more than the taste: the cocoa butter makes the pudding glossier and a little firmer once chilled. Leave it out for a lighter, more milky bowl.

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How to Make Chocolate Semolina Pudding Without Lumps

In a small bowl, stir the semolina, sugar, cocoa powder and salt together. This takes ten seconds and it matters. The sugar keeps the semolina grains and the cocoa apart, so they cannot glue together the moment they hit the milk.

Warm the milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat until it steams, stirring now and then so no skin forms. Do not let it boil. Then whisk constantly with one hand and pour the dry mix in slowly with the other. Dumping it in all at once is how you get lumps.

Keep whisking for 4 to 5 minutes. The milk turns from thin and frothy to thick and glossy, and the whisk starts leaving trails on the surface. Switch to a spatula for the last minute and scrape the corners of the pan, where cocoa and sugar like to catch.

Take the pan off the heat and stir in the chopped dark chocolate and the vanilla. The heat left in the pudding melts the chocolate in about a minute. Adding it off the heat means nothing scorches on the bottom.

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How Thick Should It Look Off the Heat?

Thinner than you think. When you lift the spoon, the pudding should coat it and fall back in soft, thick ribbons that sink slowly into the pot. It should still pour.

Semolina keeps drinking up milk as it cools, so a pudding that already looks stiff in the pan turns into a firm block in the fridge. If you like it spoonable and set, stop at the ribbon stage. For a firmer pudding that you can turn out of a mold, add 1 to 2 extra tablespoons of semolina next time instead of cooking it longer.

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Warm Like Porridge or Chilled and Set

Straight from the pan, this eats like a chocolate semolina porridge: soft, warm, and good for a cold morning or a late evening. Serve it right away while it is still loose.

For a chilled dessert, pour it into bowls or glasses and let it cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for at least 2 hours. It firms up and tastes more chocolatey cold. In Turkey a very similar dessert, kakaolu irmik tatlısı, is set in a mold and turned out, and this one can be too: rinse the mold with cold water, pour in the pudding with the extra semolina, and chill it overnight.

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Lumps, a Scorched Bottom or a Skin on Top

• A few lumps: take the pan off the heat and whisk hard for 30 seconds. If they stay, blitz the pudding for a few seconds with a stick blender.
• Burnt taste or dark specks: the bottom caught. Pour the pudding into a clean pan without scraping the base, and next time use a heavy pan and medium heat.
• Too thick: whisk in warm milk, a splash at a time, until it loosens.
• Too thin after chilling: it did not cook long enough for the semolina to swell. Return it to the pan and stir over low heat for 2 more minutes.
• A skin on top: press plastic wrap right onto the surface before it cools, or stir it in. It is only milk protein.

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Toppings for a Bowl of Chocolate Semolina

Chocolate shavings and a dusting of cocoa or cinnamon are the simplest finish. Chopped hazelnuts, almonds or walnuts add crunch, and raspberries, strawberries or cherries cut through the richness. Coconut flakes, a spoon of whipped cream, or a thin drizzle of honey or maple syrup all work too. My own favorite is honey.

If you are skipping dairy, make it with homemade oat milk and top it with coconut whipped cream. Oat milk keeps it creamiest; coconut milk adds its own flavor.

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Keeping It in the Fridge and Reheating

Cover the bowls, with plastic wrap pressed onto the surface, and keep them in the fridge for up to 3 days. The pudding gets thicker each day. To serve it warm again, put it in a small pan with a splash of milk and whisk over low heat until creamy. Semolina pudding does not freeze well; it turns watery and grainy when thawed.

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Semolina Pudding Questions

Can I make it with less sugar?

Yes. Start with half the sugar, taste after the chocolate melts, and add more if needed. With dark chocolate in the pot you need less than the full ½ cup.

Can I use chocolate chips instead of a bar?

You can, but chips contain stabilizers so they melt less smoothly. A chopped dark chocolate bar gives the glossiest pudding.

Is semolina pudding the same as chocolate pudding?

No. A homemade chocolate pudding is thickened with cornstarch and tastes silky and smooth. Semolina gives a soft, slightly grainy body, closer to rice pudding.

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More Spoonable Puddings

If you like milk puddings, try coconut rice pudding or the brown sugar depth of butterscotch pudding. For a no cook chocolate breakfast, chocolate chia pudding sets overnight in the fridge, and chocolate bread pudding is the baked, heartier cousin for a crowd.