A 5-Ingredient, High Fibre Treat

If you love chocolate but your habit is a bit out of control (me) this chocolate chia mousse is a tasty, high-energy way to eat all the chocolate you like, at any time of day. Sweeten with dates for a surprisingly filling and wholesome breakfast, or use maple syrup or honey for dessert. You can’t say no to chocolate mousse for breakfast.

The great thing about this recipe is that you can eat all three servings yourself, if you’d like, and still feel pretty good after. So if you want to go wild and keep it all to yourself, feel free. Unlike a regular egg yolk and sugar mousse, it should give you more energy not less!

I am very pro-chocolate but also know that eating regular chocolate makes me tired, so this is a nice alternative. Chia mousse is obviously not the same as a chocolate bar but it really is surprisingly good. Keep in mind that you can adjust how sweet this is, what add-ins and toppings you’d like, and so on.

I first shared this recipe in 2020. It’s been updated with improvements to the recipe instructions and slight improvements to the recipe, new photos, including step-by-step photos, and more helpful information.

I don’t use affiliate links. Any links you see here are to other recipes or related information, not paid links.

Ingredients You’ll Need and Why

You really do need just five ingredients for this, and they’re all long-lasting if not shelf-stable, so you can keep them on hand to make the mousse whenever you’d like. These are my notes from recipe testing and you can find the full recipe card below.

• Cocoa: baking cocoa powder will be a little milder than raw, and dutch process will lend the mildest, smoothest flavour. Use what you have but if you’re buying cocoa specifically for this recipe then I recommend dutch process.
• Sweetener: maple syrup and honey can be used interchangeably, as usual, but make sure you don’t use honey if you’re serving this to vegans. I haven’t tried with agave (don’t like it) but other liquid sweeteners are probably fine, so use what you prefer. It will be a little sweeter if you use an equivalent amount of honey. Use 2 to 3 tablespoons of honey for it to be as sweet as when made with maple syrup.
• Milk: other types of milk could be used instead of coconut milk, but I don’t recommend it for this recipe. Stick to a really high fat, creamy milk, that’s what makes it mousse instead of blended chia pudding – the coconut milk almost whips as it’s blended.
• Vanilla: cardamom is my go-to alternative and excellent here, but so is cinnamon, coffee spice, or gingerbread spice. Use your favourite.

How to Make Chia Seed Mousse

It’s a very simple process, and easier than traditional chocolate mousse. Simply add everything to a blender, mix it up, and then let it chill for a couple hours. These photos are here to help readers who are more visual and like to see the recipe step-by-step instead of only reading the recipe card.

Step 1: add all of the ingredients to a blender, or a blending container if using an immersion blender. Start with less maple syrup at this point if you prefer a dessert that’s hardly sweet.

Step 2: blend until very smooth. The seeds are always going to have a slight texture but it’s much less noticeable when blended like this. Taste the mixture at this point and add more maple syrup if you have a sweet tooth.

Step 3: refrigerate until set and thickened, about two hours. It will have a slight jelly-like consistency from the chia seeds and that’s how it should be.

Step 4: split the chia mousse into dishes and serve with any desired toppings. Pictured is with a little yogurt, strawberries, and pistachios. I often spoon the mousse into small lidded jars and top with frozen raspberries, then keep them in the refrigerator for snacks.

Expert Tips for the Best Mousse

• Choose your blender: you can use an immersion blender or even a food processor to make this recipe, but if you have a high powered blender, it’ll make the smoothest, creamiest mousse and that’s ideal. With a lower-powered machine it’s not quite as smooth, but still delicious.
• Blend before soaking: this recipe previously mixed everything together and soaked the chia seeds before blending. I went through another round of testing and found that the texture is much smoother if blended before soaking, because it’s too thick to blend effectively after the chia seeds have absorbed so much of the liquid.
• Blend it twice: if you want an even smoother texture – this isn’t completely smooth, not like vegan chocolate mousse – you can blend it again after the mousse has thickened. That’s best with a food processor because it’ll be a little too thick for a normal blender.

Cocoa or Raw Cacao

For this mousse, you can use them interchangeably and it doesn’t matter much in terms of flavour. Raw cacao is a bit stronger and more bitter, whereas cocoa powder is milder. Don’t mix this up for hot cocoa drink mix, which is neither, but cocoa mixed with a sweetener and often milk powder.

Cacao powder has some small additional benefits, which you can read a bit more about in my raw chocolate recipe, so I sometimes mix the two to get the best of both worlds. Cocoa, especially dutch process cocoa powder, will make the mousse darker in colour than reddish raw cacao will.

More Chia Pudding Recipes

• Chocolate Chia Pudding Parfait – the recipe this is adapted from, a blended chia pudding with orange and pomegranate
• Coconut Chia Pudding – a richer version of typical chia pudding, made with canned coconut milk
• Yogurt Chia Pudding – a higher protein option, with tangy yogurt (non-dairy or dairy)
• Rhubarb Chia Pudding – a dessert, really, with a sweet rhubarb compote layered in

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