Here’s an easy recipe for the best banana pudding ever!
Extreme Banana Pudding
Vanilla wafers
6 to 8 bananas, sliced
2 cups milk
1 large box (5 oz.) instant French vanilla pudding
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 oz.) container whipped topping, thawed or an equal amount of sweetened whipped cream
Layer vanilla wafers on the bottom of a 9×13 pan or dish. Top with bananas. Beat milk and pudding mix using a mixer. In another bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk. Beat until smooth. Fold the whipped topping into the cream cheese mixture. Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture and stir until well blended. Pour the mixture over the cookies and bananas and cover with the remaining cookies. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Easy Recipe Variations:
Leave out the bananas and replace the vanilla wafers with chocolate cookies and vanilla pudding with chocolate pudding. If you like chocolate and bananas, then leave the bananas in.
Leave out bananas and cookies and use lemon, butterscotch, or coconut pudding in place of the vanilla. You could garnish butterscotch with butterscotch chips or coconut with toasted coconut and/or pineapple.
You can put any of these in a regular baked pie crust or a graham cracker or cookies crust.
Use the vanilla pudding but try other types of fruit with or in place of the bananas.
You could also add in things like nuts, marshmallows or chocolate shavings depending on the flavor of pudding you are using.
photo by: jasonlam
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I discovered years ago through a friend, Karen Mason and yes she is married to Perry..and a Home Ec teacher…to add coffee creamer tbl or two…and is scrumptious!!
I bet that would be good Auda. I add creamer to my hot chocolate and it gives it a nice texture and flavor. I have never bought any of the flavored coffee creamers but I wonder what some of those would taste like in cocoa or pudding. Like the peppermint to chocolate pudding.
This recipe looks so yummy for warmer weather and holidays like Easter.
The addition of the cream cheese…YUMMY!!! Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather :)
I need to take a dish to the polls next Tuesday – we are having a special election and everyone brings a treat to share. This one will be mine. I’m going to do coconut because I cannot eat bananas any more (my mom’s favorite dessert was banana pudding) and I love it too but alas, will have to try something different.
I am eager to try this dessert with the cream cheese addition.
I make a wonderful dessert called “The next best thing to Robert Redford” but since a lot of young-uns don’t know much about Robert Redford, my kids call it my Robby Reddy dessert. Anyway, it is made with a short crust with pecans, chocolate pudding, cream cheese and lots of cool whip. I will bring the recipe tomorrow so I can give you all the correct amounts.
I have that recipe too and it is to die for. As a matter of fact it is my all time favorite. I think I maybe posted it a while back so need to check it. It for years was my go to recipe so thanks for mentioning it. This here recipe kind of reminded me of it.
I think that this recipe reminded me of it,too. We always eat our Robby Reddy (also known to my daughter’s college friends as “next best thing to sex”)frozen or slightly icy. It is more like an ice cream dessert. It is especially good in the summertime. Now, I’ll have to dig out my recipe and make it. I have a taste for it since I have been talking about it.
You have me drooling too. It is a good thing I ran out of milk this morning because I wouldn’t be down here working but upstairs making it.: )
I made this to serve after church for dessert. I didn’t have bananas on hand, so I used peaches that I had frozen last summer. I thawed & drained them really well and blotted them with a few paper towels. Oh my it was YUMMY! Thanks for sharing this wonderful recipe!
Oh and I sprinked a few toasted almond slivers on top with the cookie crumbs.
WOW! This sounds so wonderful. I love banana pudding. My Grandma always made it with homemade, cooked pudding (YUM!), real whipped cream, and of course, vanilla wafers. This sounds great, though, and I’m going to make it for sure!
Jill-You mentioned being out of milk. I may have talked about my little “go to” trick for milk that I came uo with several years ago. I buy canned evaporated milk at Aldis, etc. and keep a few on hand. I pour 1 can into a 2 qt. pitcher and fill with water to the top. Stir well, and chill til cold. I usually add 1 t. vanilla to it, but not always. This makes a very good substitute for fresh milk, and I use it just as I would regular milk. I pay about 79 cents a can, so I get a half gallon of milk for under a dollar. A whole gallon of milk can be made for $1.60!! Try buying a gallon of milk in the stores for $1.60! Anyway, I hope this is a tip you can use:)
Best to you always!
Barb~
Good idea Barb. I have used evap milk in some baking but have never tried doing it like you said so will have to try it. The idea of adding vanilla makes sense because I read once to add vanilla to cheap frozen whipped topping to help it taste like the real thing so this would be the same idea. Thanks for a great tip.
I use evaporated milk in almost all my recipes that call for milk. It is especially good in mashed potatoes. Just dilute 1/2 milk and 1/2 water. It gives the potatoes a creamy texture. Also, I make all my cooked puddings with evaporated milk and even cook fish fillets in the oven with evap. milk. Put the fillets in a pan with sides, dot with butter and pour full strength evaporated milk over the top. Do not cover the fillets with the milk but put enough for the amount of sauce you want. I sprinkle Paprika over all and bake for as long as is needed to get done – approx 20 to 30 minutes for 1/4″ thick fillets. The sauce is delicious and kids like it. It is especially good with rice because you can drizzle the sauce over the rice, too.
I have never heard of putting vanilla in the milk but will try it the next time I whip up a batch.
If you chill a pan of evaporated milk in the freezer until ice crystals form, you can whip it into whipping cream. Just add a little sugar for the sweetness you like and it is delicious. Mom always kept evap milk in the cupboard because it was inexpensive, like Barb says, and we could have a little treat on our dessert without a huge outlay of cash. Since we were really poor, this was an easy way to have a dessert. We also made a bisquick cake (the velvet crumb cake), and used this as a topping. The great thing about the Bisquick cake was that if we didn’t have eggs or oil, you could still have a good cake using only water. So mom would add the evap milk whipped cream and we were delighted. Just another way to make something nice when you are scrapping the bottom of the pocketbook at the end of the month.
These are truly some great ideas! I use a banana pudding recipe that is the same, but does not have the cream cheese. And it sounds like the Robby Reddy is what we call a Mississippi Mud. My dad always put evap. milk and sugar in his coffee, and that is how I like it best, but these days I use Silk to cut back on fat and calories, just not the same!
Rachel-I laughed when I read you post. The “real things” are always the best, aren’t they? It’s hard to fool our taste buds!!
I made many deserts when my 3 sons were growing teen-agers. I made that Banana Pudding, but used Pineapple instead of bananas. It made a great pudding. Just a good change from the regular banana pudding.
I sometimes make a pineapple pudding.Pineapple,butterscotch pudding and vanilla wafers. My family loves it and it makes a god change from regular banana pudding.It also looks really pretty in my trifle bowl.