Dark Chocolate Tapioca Pudding

Here’s a dreamy creamy soothing-to-the-soul dark chocolate tapioca pudding. Little milky soft chewy tapioca pearls swim in the sweet custardy pudding and give it a unique texture. Make this unassuming old-fashioned comfort pudding when you’re craving a simple chocolate dessert–you’ll love it!

With 5 basic ingredients–tapioca pearls, milk, honey, chocolate and eggs, homemade chocolate tapioca pudding is creamy and honey sweet, made even more lucious with dark bittersweet chocolate. The squishy pearls feel good in your mouth and thicken the mix. Tapioca pudding is a bit like creamy rice pudding but grain-free.

This pudding reminds many of a childhood treat. Nowadays you can buy tapioca pudding in different flavors in small one-serving cups. But from scratch is always better!

white tapioca pearls and chopped dark chocolate with knife for Dark Chocolate Tapioca Pudding

About tapioca pearls for Chocolate Tapioca Pudding:

Tapioca is made from a starchy root vegetable — cassava. Tapioca is gluten free.

Tapioca has a few different incarnations—small and large pearls, instant tapioca and tapioca flour, aka tapioca starch. All have thickening power. Use either the small or large pearls in this recipe.
Because the pearls keep the right texture and thicken the pudding perfectly, I like Bob’s Red Mill brand (affiliate link.)
Soak tapioca pearls in water before cooking in milk, about 30 minutes for small pearls, a bit longer for larger pearls. They should be squishy on the outside, but not all the way through before adding them to the milk. Be careful to not pre-soak either size pearls too long or they will become mushy.

>>> I don’t recommend instant tapioca for this chocolate pudding; the classic pearly texture will be lost. On the other hand, instant tapioca and tapioca flour are wonderful thickener for fruit pies. In baking, the thickened fruit juices run clear, not cloudy, as the juices do when you use cornstarch or flour as the thickener.

>>> The bobas in bubble tea are made with tapioca pearls. You’ll want to try this healthy Maple Chai Bubble Tea. Both bubble tea and this rich chocolate tapioca pudding use such small amounts of tapioca, so you’ll have extra tapioca pearls to make more tapioca pudding and bubble tea!

Dark Chocolate Tapioca Pudding with strawberries in wine glasses with red check tablecloth

I created this recipe in memory of my father. He loved tapioca pudding, his favorite dessert.

Like so many of his generation, Daddy smoked cigarettes. Which triggered the strokes, the first one when he was 58.

He was 48 years old when I was born. Because I was still a young girl when he died, memories of Daddy are scarce. I do remember he always requested tapioca pudding, creamy, yet with the pleasing tapioca texture. I know he would have loved this creamy rich chocolate version!

This updated recipe was first posted for Father’s Day in June 2014!

>>> Adapted from the recipe on the back of the bag of Bob’s Red Mill small pearl tapioca. (Affiliate link.)

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4.29 from 7 votes