Yes, you can! However, this recipe is for the BEST banana cream pie! What that means is that you actually infuse real banana flavor into the custard as well, which other recipes don't do. The entire banana pie filling is made from scratch so that you can add more flavor at every step. Making it from scratch will taste so much better than from a packet (in this case). A standard instant vanilla pudding package requires 2 cups of milk to be whisked with the package contents to make the pudding. Substitute the 2 cups of milk with 1.5 cups of the banana infused milk, so that the instant vanilla pudding package gets an instant flavor boost. It's important to keep the pudding thick, so that it'll set properly in the pie crust. That's why you add less milk. However, I have not tried this approach, so I cannot guarantee how stable the banana cream pie filling will be. Please see recipe notes below for all the substitutions to make the best easy banana cream pie recipe.