As summer arrives, my breakfast makes a hard pivot away from warm, nourishing porridges to plush puddings that help me keep my system hydrated, cool and clean. The goal is to get sufficient fiber, protein, nutrients and beauty into my body, and this Hibiscus Basil Seed Pudding w/Cherries + Mint is my recent favorite way to make that happen.
That’s right. My typical default is chia seeds, but basil seeds deserve our attention, folx. Basil seeds (sabja) aren’t a chia substitute — they’re actually the better choice for this particular job. Chia is nutritionally solid but energetically neutral-to-warming depending on who you ask; basil seeds are classically cooling, which matters when the entire point of this pudding is to bring pitta down, not just fill you up. They gel the same way chia does — same soak, same texture — so you’re not losing anything functionally. You’re just picking the seed that’s actually working with the season instead of against it.
Hibiscus and full-fat coconut milk are superpowered ingredients in the summer time, doing a lot of heavy lifting for bodies that like to overheat.
Hibiscus is tart, red, and cooling — it brings pitta down through rasa or flavor, not just temperature. Coconut does the same thing from a heavier, more grounding angle: full-fat, sweet, stabilizing. Put them together and you get cooling from two different textures of the same instruction. That’s the whole trick of pitta-season cooking — you’re not just picking “cold” foods, you’re picking foods with a cooling taste and quality that don’t ask your digestion to work overtime in weather that’s already taxing it.
If irritability, inflammation in body or digestion, skin flare ups and a short fuse typically rear their ugly heads in the summertime, THIS is why you need to pay attention to pitta. Pitta, unmanaged in summer, doesn’t announce itself as “hot.” It shows up as bothered. As a nagging edgyness and state of unwellness that’s subtle, annoying and that your system doesn’t need. Add to this that, when pitta climbs and accumulates in the body, it’s that much harder to chill out, do the good work of hibernating and bringing the body into balance in the fall. By maintaining pitta in the summer, we get to play more, move more, go bigger and harder, while staying present, glowing and graceful instead of angry, inflammed and unsure of why.
The feeling you’ll have when you get to know this place of driven, cooled calm is difficult to describe, but in my experience this sensation – from deep in the body – is like floating on a calm lake in the lazy sun. It’s easy, you can see the horizon, nothing is going to shock you or disturb you. Pitta unmanaged is more like floating on a ragin river where obstacles will continue to be thrown at you, and you’ll get increasingly annoyed as your oars get thrown out of the boat, huge splashes of water hit your face, and you feel a bit like you’re drowning even though you’re in a boat…
The choice is yours, and it starts with how you handle breakfast. So put down that iced coffee, or ice cold smoothie, and get floating.
The heat outside in the summer adds directly to the heat you’re already carrying if you’re a pitta-dominant person, or honestly if you’re anyone standing in July sun for more than ten minutes. Cooling food isn’t a wellness flourish here — it’s maintenance. If you wanna stay hot, you’ve gotta keep cool.
Is a lovely, luxe addition to your summer breakfast ritual AND it’s easy to make ahead! I like to whisk up this pudding the night before, pull it from the the fridge and allow it to come to room temp, then blend and enjoy in the morning. I do this because eating something ice cold is the equivalent of dumping ice water on your digestive fire – it extinguishes it and we need that fire!
Saffron and rose are the indulgent layer on top of the functional one — this isn’t a pudding that makes you choose between feeling good and tasting good. Sit in the sun and enjoy this cooling, balancing breakfast, then get after it!
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