Dubai Chocolate-Style Pistachio Chia Pudding Recipe

This Dubai chocolate-style pistachio chia pudding recipe is made for days when you want a pick-me-up in the afternoon or a special make-ahead breakfast. It walks the line between sweet and wholesome, trending and eternal, and it tastes delicious, whatever time of day you eat it.

Dubai chocolate took the world by storm in 2024, but it was a while before you could get the bars in the U.S. Now that the bars are widely available, it's still hard to find more nutritious variations of this treat that aren't full of refined sugar and preservatives. That's where this chia pudding comes in: With all the flavor of the original Dubai chocolate, it provides a not-too-sweet version you could feel good eating, even in the mornings.

As a food blogger working with Middle Eastern recipes on At the Immigrant's Table, I love using kataifi noodles in all manner of recipes. In this chia pudding recipe, we use the noodles as a crunchy topping and a bottom layer for our parfait-like creation. Ground pistachios and chia seeds provide the filling, and a thin layer of chocolate gives us the perfect crackling topping. The overall result is a crunchy, creamy, and satisfying recipe for those who like their Dubai chocolate on the more wholesome side.

To make this make-ahead Dubai chocolate pistachio chia pudding, you'll need butter and either frozen or fresh kataifi noodles, which are essentially thin strands of shredded phyllo pastry. For the chia pudding itself, grab raw pistachios, water, honey, and chia seeds. For the chocolate topping, you'll want dark chocolate and coconut oil. If you cannot find raw pistachios, you can use roasted ones, just try to find unsalted ones. If you want to make this dish vegan, simply use coconut oil for frying the noodles as well.

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.

Toast the kataifi noodles in a pan with the butter over medium heat for 3-4 minutes until golden.

Chop the kataifi noodles roughly and divide them among four glasses, reserving ¼ cup for topping.

Soak the pistachios in hot water for 5 minutes.

Drain the pistachios and grind them with ¾ cup water and the honey until smooth.

Fold the chia seeds into the pistachio mixture.

Divide the pistachios and chia seeds among the glasses over the noodle base.

Refrigerate the pudding for 4 hours until thickened.

Melt the chocolate with the coconut oil in the microwave, working in 30-second bursts.

Drizzle the chocolate over the puddings in a thin layer.

Top the puddings with the reserved toasted noodles and additional chopped pistachios, and serve.

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We used real, raw pistachios in our Dubai chocolate chia pudding variations to stick to the most natural ingredient list possible. However, if you don't have a powerful food processor or simply don't feel like mucking about with soaking pistachios, we have some alternatives for you.

Pistachio butter is the easiest alternative you can use in this pudding. It will require minimal adjustments, and you'll likely just need to reduce the quantity of water used in the recipe. It also keeps the recipe pretty close to clean. If you want something sweeter or more decadent, pistachio cream or paste is your go-to replacement. Both have more sugar and usually milk or cream added, which would make the recipe decidedly more dessert-like. 

If you want to leave pistachios behind altogether, know you'll be going in a non-Dubai chocolate direction. However, tahini paste provides a gorgeous option for the filling that maintains the Middle Eastern character of the dish. You may want to add a bit more honey if you opt to use tahini.

There are some changes we like making to the dish if we want to take it in a more nuanced or original direction. In all cases, we still want to keep the Dubai-chocolate character of the dish. One thing we love doing is adding a pinch of cardamom and cinnamon to the pistachio chia mixture. It gives the dish a unique, more complex flavor that has more spice and layering. Another small change that doesn't overpower the dish is to roast the pistachios in a pan prior to grinding them — a step which deepens their flavor considerably.

We also love adding fresh fruit like strawberries or pomegranate seeds between the layers. It gives the dish brightness and makes it feel more like a nutritious breakfast. Stirring a splash of oat or almond milk into the chia pudding also helps make it looser and creamier.

Finally, if you're making this for a gluten-free breakfast, you can omit the noodles or substitute them with granola for crunch. Folding a sprinkle of za'atar into the noodles or granola also serves as an interesting contrast to the sweetness of the dish.

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