Vegan Hojicha Panna Cotta with Agar Agar Recipe
Feb 13, 2022 • Updated Apr 24, 2024
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This beautiful Hojicha vegan Panna Cotta is a delightful, light, and creamy vegan and gluten-free dessert made with green tea leaves, oat milk, and maple syrup.
What is Panna Cotta?
Panna cotta is a traditional Italian dessert. It’s a custard made with sweetened cream that’s thickened into a pudding-like texture using gelatin. My creamy, vegan version is just as delicious, but made with oat milk, maple syrup, and agar agar powder instead!
Classic panna cotta is flavored with vanilla, but you can flavor yours with dozens of different flavorings. In this case, I love the delicate tea flavor of hojicha and it’s one of my favorite desserts.
What is Hojicha?
Hojicha is a type of Japanese green tea. The leaves are dried and roasted over charcoal, which is how they get their distinctly smoky, concentrated flavor.
The roasting process prevents oxidation, which helps preserve the tea leaves flavor. It also turns the leaves a light gold, which is distinct from the grassy green of other teas, like matcha.
How to Make Vegan Panna Cotta with Green Tea
To infuse your vegan panna cotta with the most flavor, you’ll start by infusing the oat milk. Next, sweeten the milk with maple syrup and help it gel. For the pudding-like texture, you’ll use agar-agar.
This creamy dessert is super simple and turns out so tasty. See details below for ingredients and step-by-step instructions for this vegan dessert!
Ingredient Notes
- Hojicha Tea Leaves*
- Unsweetened Oat Milk: You can also use cashew milk, soy milk or canned full-fat coconut milk (or coconut cream) as a plant-based substitute for oat milk.
- Maple Syrup: Use more or less to taste. Can also use agave syrup.
- Vanilla Bean Paste: You can also sub 1/2 tsp vanilla extract or scrape fresh vanilla beans from a vanilla bean pod.
- Agar Agar Powder: Agar-agar powder is a kelp-based ingredient that has very little flavor but helps liquids thicken and gel. This thickening agent is vegan and gluten-free, so it’s a great replacement for animal-based gelatin in desserts like panna cotta.
garnish
- Fresh Fruits and Fresh Berries
- Fresh Mint
- Toasted Buckwheat Groats
- Lemon Zest
- Chocolate Sauce
- Strawberry Coulis
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Start by infusing your oat milk with tea leaves. Add milk to a small saucepan, and tea leaves to a tea bag or strainer. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and let cook for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit for an additional 5 minutes, or to your liking. The longer the tea leaves sit, the stronger the flavour will be.
- Put the saucepan back on low-medium heat, and add maple syrup, vanilla bean paste, and agar powder. Bring to a low boil and whisk to combine. Remove from heat and let sit for a few minutes.
- Prepare your ramekins or small bowls and pour your cream mixture into the bowls. Allow sitting at room temperature for a few minutes before chilling in the fridge until set. Chill the panna cotta mixture for a minimum of an hour, or for best results, overnight!
- Garnish the top of the panna cotta with fresh fruit as desired.
Expert Tips
- Setting: Be sure to leave yourself some time to let the panna cotta set up fully. It needs at least an hour, but you can prepare the ramekins the night before serving for the best texture.
- Green Tea Alternative: If you’re not able to find hojicha tea leaves, you can also make this using Earl gray tea leaves, black tea, Thai tea, or other similar tea. Be sure to use dry tea leaves or a tea bag (not a concentrate or brewed tea.
- Agar Agar: Find agar-agar at specialty food stores, Asian markets, and online. *Make sure to use Agar Agar powder and not agar flakes. They work differently and do not substitute well.
Serving Tips
- This vegan panna cotta is an individual, delicious dessert. You can garnish each pretty little dish with fresh mixed berries and something crunchy. I like toasted buckwheat groats or Vanilla Fig Granola. You can also serve with raspberry sauce or strawberry sauce (or other fruit coulis), dark chocolate piece or vegan whipping cream!
- This creamy panna cotta makes an elegant dessert with little effort that mimics a fine Italian restaurant treat.
It’s very simple! It replaces heavy cream for plant-based milk, agar agar powder for gelatin, and maple syrup as a natural sweetener instead of regular white sugar or other refined sugar. You can flavor it in so many ways, like coconut panna cotta (though the classic is vanilla panna cotta). I opted for a delicate, flavorful green tea for mine.
Yes! Agar agar powder is a vegan, gluten-free substitute for gelatin. It uses no animal products and creates the same gelatinous texture needed for many recipes.
It’s Italian for “cooked cream”.
More Easy Dessert Recipes
Strawberry Matcha Sugar Cookies
If you make this Easy Vegan Panna Cotta recipe, be sure to let me know what you think with a comment below!
Vegan Hojicha Panna Cotta with Agar Agar Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp hojicha tea leaves*
- 1 1/2 cup unsweetened oat milk
- 1 tbsp maple syrup more to taste
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or sub 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 tsp agar powder
- garnish
- fresh berries
- fresh mint
- toasted buckwheat groats
Instructions
- Start by infusing your oat milk with tea leaves. Add milk to a small saucepan, and tea leaves in a tea bag or strainer. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and let cook for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit for an additional 5 minutes, or to your liking. The longer the tea leaves sit, the stronger the flavour will be.
- Put the saucepan back on medium heat, add maple syrup, vanilla bean paste and agar powder. Bring to a low boil and whisk to combine. Remove from heat and let sit for a few minutes.
- Prepare your ramekins or small bowls and pour your mixture into the bowls. Allow to sit at room temp for a few minutes before chilling in the fridge until set. Chill for a minimum of an hour, or ideally overnight!
- Garnish with fresh fruit as desired.
Notes
Expert Tips
- Setting: Be sure to leave yourself some time to let the panna cotta set up fully. It needs at least an hour, but you can prepare the ramekins the night before serving for the best texture.
- Green Tea Alternative: If you’re not able to find hojicha tea leaves, you can also make this using earl gray tea leaves, black tea, Thai tea, or other similar tea. Be sure to use dry tea leaves or a tea bag (not a concentrate or brewed tea.
- Agar Agar: Find agar-agar at specialty food stores, Asian markets, and online. *Make sure to use Agar Agar powder and not agar flakes. They work differently and do not substitute well.
Serving Tips
- This vegan panna cotta is an individual dessert. You can garnish each pretty little dish with fresh mixed berries and something crunchy. I like toasted buckwheat groats or Vanilla Fig Granola.
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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