The Best Banana Pudding

  4.7 – 959 reviews  • Pudding

Vanilla wafers and banana slices are piled in this delightful no-cook recipe for banana pudding. It’s the best banana pudding you’ll ever find, many people have assured me.

Prep Time: 25 mins
Total Time: 25 mins
Servings: 20

Ingredients

  1. 2 cups cold milk
  2. 1 (5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
  3. 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
  4. 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  5. 1 (12 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
  6. 1 (16 ounce) package vanilla wafers
  7. 14 small bananas, sliced or to taste

Instructions

  1. Gather all ingredients.
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  3. Place milk and pudding mix in a large bowl; beat with a whisk for 2 minutes. Blend in condensed milk until smooth.
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  5. Stir in vanilla, then fold in whipped topping.
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  7. Layer wafers, banana slices, and pudding mixture in a glass serving bowl.
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  9. Chill. When ready to serve top with extra crushed wafers.
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  11. Enjoy!
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Nutrition Facts

Calories 329 kcal
Carbohydrate 57 g
Cholesterol 9 mg
Dietary Fiber 3 g
Protein 4 g
Saturated Fat 5 g
Sodium 205 mg
Sugars 29 g
Fat 10 g
Unsaturated Fat 0 g

Reviews

Johnny Evans
I’ve made this recipe for years exactly as it says and I’ve never gotten one bad response. Everyone loves it. Note: I think 14 bananas is a typo and I use about four bananas. I’ve found if you let it sit overnight then the banana flavor is stronger. This allows for a natural banana flavor vs an artificial flavor found in banana flavored pudding.
Olivia Hernandez
This didn’t taste like traditional banana pudding. I definitely wouldn’t put the full can of sweetened condensed milk and I would use less cool whip. It’s not nasty though.
Jennifer Smith
Oh my. If you try to follow this recipe, it will turn out so overly sweet and liquidy. I strongly recommend leaving out the condensed sweetened milk and only using maybe 5 or 6 bananas.
Terry Gomez
I didn’t make any changes! It came out wonderful! Perfect! And looks so amazing and pretty too! It was my first time making it. Allrecipes never lets me down!
James Bailey
This recipe is far too sweet. I took another commenter’s advice about substituting the “frozen whipped topping” for heavy cream whipped at home without sugar, but this was still way too sweet with the can of sweetened condensed milk. Next time I will omit that part altogether and use the pudding with unsweetened whipped cream.
Joseph Moore
Says to use frozen whip topping but that does not work. Needs to be refrigerated not frozen.
Sydney Powell
I ended up swapping the Vanilla pudding for Cheesecake flavor and reduced the amount of Banana’s…BOOM!!!! It was pure HEAVEN.
Mark Armstrong
I used a box of banana cream and one box of vanilla pudding and used 4 cups of milk (2 extra for add’l box) and it came out fabulous. Wishing I had my clear glass bowl as others look beautiful. Tastes amazing. Only 6 bananas.
John Burton
I love this recipe. I do switch the vanilla pudding for banana cream pudding. I feel it makes it taste more like banana pudding with this. The family loves it and there is usually none left after a family gathering.
Andrew Grant
Everywhere I take this and every time I serve it the comments are the same- “This is the best banana pudding I have ever eaten.”
Aaron Moore
So so delicious. Little too much taste of condensed milk so half of the can should still be good. Have it with dark coffee if it’s too sweet!
Michael Harris
Great, but 14 bananas. That a lot of bananas.
John Reyes
This recipe’s ingredients are quick to asseble in preperation, easy to add together- with a minimum of mess in the kitchen! After making it a few times, I’ve tweaked it with less bananas- I used 7 this last time (14 is a lot!), 1/4 cup more milk, & 1/2 box more vanilla wafers (I always buy 2 boxes in advance). Put all the ingredients together in the morning, stick it in the fridge, and by dinner it’s ready for the dessert . The 2nd time I ever made it was for a “date night” dinner with my girlfriend. I felt like a chef! This banana pudding made it a huge success. Delicious!
Rachel Briggs
Even though this was awesome, I added the whip cream as a separate layer after each layer of banana pudding and I didn’t use 14 bananas.
David Turner
I made this with one substitution. I made stabilized whipped cream rather than using the cool whip-type product. I had raves!! BUT warning – this is NOT low calory 🙂
Christopher Jarvis
VERY GOOD RECIPE! I didn’t use all 14 bananas. I only used 9 and it came out really good. YUM
Robert Colon
I have used the recipes for years. Its a winner everytime.
Corey Martin
Did 1/2 banana and 1/2 vanilla pudding- the pudding has to be the instant version, not the kind you have to cook. Also, the original recipe on here only called for 4 bananas not 14- I think that must be a recent typo.
Sandra Green
I made this a few times but my sister is allergic to banana’s so I made it minus the bananas. I also used french vanilla mix and it was delicious. Making it again today 🙂
Tonya Young
Super easy and not overly sweet like some say. You could probably use the sugar free vanilla pudding to make it a little lighter. My pudding was also not the least bit runny. The recipe here doesn’t specify clearly, but you only use “two cups” of milk to mix the pudding unlike the pudding box directions that say “3 cups”. I make a brownie triffle dessert that also omits 1/3 of the milk to thicken the pudding. If you mix the pudding and let it sit like the recipe says, then add the condensed milk and let it sit and firm while you slice bananas then it is fine. I also used a 16 oz container of cool whip that was frozen but thawed for a bit. It is important to “fold” or lightly stir the cool whip-pudding mixture so it doesn’t get real thin. Definitely don’t use a mixer. I used ten full size bananas, light cool whip, and skim milk to make mine. My husband and both kids loved it and prefer it over the baked banana pudding!
Michael Cantu
I have made this recipe at least 6 times now, and it is absolutely delicious. I used almond milk the last two times for a dairy free crowd and it came out just as good. The Cool whip does not make it overly sweet, if anything it lightens it up a bit. The texture is really good as long as you fold as directed. To address some of the issues people are having, for the people that say it was soupy, you have to whisk the pudding and milk for the whole two minutes. If you just mix it together and stop it will not thicken. Do not stop whisking until you have a thick pudding. My guess is this is 90% of what went wrong. Some may have used cook and serve pudding instead of instant and that won’t work either. It’s a matter of reading the directions and following the instructions. Those that say they did it to a T and but didn’t turn out right absolutely did not. It is foolproof and extremely easy as long as you follow the instructions. I didn’t count the number of bananas, I sliced and layered them. I put an entire banana layer after the nilla wafers. I think the addition of a lot of bananas is also good. It breaks up the sweet with fruit. It’s obviously a sweet dessert. You know this if you are familiar with the ingredients. If you don’t like sweet pudding try another recipe or just use packaged banana pudding as is.

 

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