homemade vegan nutella
Nutella. I first had it at twenty, and what a revelation it was, spread on toast in the little flat I was visiting outside London. In the ensuing decades this chocolate-hazelnut treat remained a sweet memory along with Aero bars. When it finally hit North American grocery stores I read the label and was deterred by the hydrogenated oil.
Ferrero has since reformulated Nutella to eliminate hydrogenated oil, and the company is ahead of the Girl Scouts in trying to source its palm oil from sustainable sources. You could do worse than to buy the commercial version. Just think of either the store or homemade varieties as special occasion food (who convinced parents it would be OK to serve chocolate frosting for breakfast?).
I made it for a weekend brunch when my whole family was home, adapting the vegan chocolate-hazelnut spread recipe I found at Kelly Brozyna’s The Spunky Coconut. The family loved my version of Nutella spread on slices of freshly-made French toast and topped with sliced bananas. The idea of the French toast-Nutella-banana sandwich came from Tastefully Julie.
Next time I make this I may add hazelnut oil, which would intensify the nut flavor and soften it a little. It gets quite firm in the refrigerator but spreads fine as it is. It could also be made with cocoa powder instead of chocolate, adding additional sweetener and coconut milk to replace the chocolate’s sugar and cocoa butter. The LA Times has a recipe using cocoa powder, though it seems to me that it would need additional liquid.
This recipe uses one full can of Thai Kitchen Coconut Milk. Though the cans aren’t BPA-free, it’s a good quality milk without preservatives or additives. The recipe makes a big batch of spread, which has to be eaten fresh because of the coconut milk. Fortunately it freezes well. I froze half but admit that it came back out of the freezer more quickly than I’d anticipated. Maybe I’d better wait a while before making that next batch.
I’ve made this with Sucanat and with muscovado sugar, while Kelly’s Spunky Coconut recipe calls for coconut sugar. Here’s the coconut milk and sugar simmering on the stove:
melting the coconut milk and sugar together
I put in a quarter cup of sugar compared to Kelly’s half a cup, but we both used similarly sweet chocolate bars with around 70% cocoa. I’m kind of lazy on the chocolate-melting front. I zap it in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds, which I find works as well as melting it in a double boiler with less effort.
I prefer toasting nuts in a pan on the stove under my watchful eye, instead of in a oven where I can sometimes make the expensive mistake of burning them. You could do it my way, or you could toast the nuts in the oven at 350 for about fifteen minutes.
roasting DuChilly hazelnuts in the pan
I used Holmquist Orchards DuChilly hazelnuts, which are sweeter than round hazelnuts and have a very thin, non-bitter skin. They’re a local farmer’s market producer for me, but DuChilly hazelnuts are otherwise hard to find– in fact, Holmquist is the only source I see online. You can get their nuts online through them or from Amazon. Most recipes for homemade chocolate-hazelnut spread call for rubbing the hazelnuts with a towel after toasting to remove the skins. The skins are slightly bitter and may leave a little grittiness in your final product, but I don’t usually bother to remove them.
Enjoy! And if you try the recipe please leave your suggestions and ratings in the comment section, I love to hear from you!
Update: I will now be taking care to buy chocolate from sources which do not use forced child labor.
- 1½ cups DuChilly or round hazelnuts
- ¼ cup unrefined sugar (coconut, muscovado, Sucanat, etc.)
- 10 oz. dark chocolate
- 1 can Thai Kitchen coconut milk (13.6 oz) or just over 1½ cups of full-fat coconut milk
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- pinch of salt to taste
- Melt chocolate in a bowl in the microwave, stirring after each minute. Should melt in 2 or 3 minutes (depending on your microwave).
- Toast hazelnuts in a large pan over a medium flame until they start to smell fragrant and turn brown, about 2 or 3 minutes.
- Melt the coconut milk with the sugar in a pot, stirring over a low flame until the sugar has completely melted (a few minutes).
- Put the toasted hazelnuts in a food processor or a high-powered blender like a Vitamix. Process or blend (using the tamper) until the nuts are just ground into a meal.
- Add the coconut milk-sugar mixture. Blend again until smooth.
- Add the melted chocolate, blend until smooth.
- This is not that sweet, you could increase the sweetness with a liquid sweetener that can be blended in if you prefer.
- This makes a large batch and coconut milk is perishable: put into small jars and freeze whatever you won't eat within several days.
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Thanks for the link love!
psst. It’s Tastefully Julie but Naturally has a nice ring to it, too 🙂
I’ll fix that, Julie! Thanks for the Sunday brunch inspiration!
This is brilliant! I don’t buy Nutella for the sole reason that I would eat it all in 2 sittings…LOVE this homemade version – would at least feel better about eating it.
This is such a wonderful recipe. I would never have thought of making this before your recipe.
I’ve heard such good things about those DuChilly hazelnuts for years now, and I have yet to try them. I’ve certainly tossed around the idea of ordering online, but just never bit the bullet… Perhaps this recipe will push me over the edge though, because a good vegan Nutella is (nearly) priceless. I’ve made many versions now, but never with coconut milk. I’m very curious to see how that changes things!
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Having the DuChillys at the farmer’s market has made it easy for me, I don’t know that I would have gotten around to buying them otherwise. I think the Holmquists here in Washington may be the only US source. I see that they sell hazelnut flour, too, I’m sure that would be really good for baking. I poked around and see that Nuts.com also sells the DuChillys, presumably from the Holmquists as they say they are grown ‘in the shadow of the North Cascades.’ I also found an article in the LA times about a visit by Deborah Madison to their farm, with some tempting looking dessert ideas for a baker like you (hazelnut torte with espresso cream) and savory ideas too (romanesco sauce).
My family LOVES nutella but I stopped buying it after reading the ingredients. Can I use stevia or another truvia in place of the sugar? Plz let me know, I can’t wait to try the recipe!
I love Nutella–I also discovered it while vacationing in Europe. I even smuggled little packets of the stuff from the hotel’s breakfast room back to the US! But I haven’t bought it in so long because it seems pretty low on nutritional value (and high in sugar). Your version sounds wonderful and I LOVE the fact that it has less sugar in it!
Thanks, Ohkeeka! Hope you like it when you try it yourself!
I am trying to get away from sweetened chocolate, therefore, is it possible to use carob powder instead, and if so, how much?
Hi Cynthia, this recipe uses unsweetened cocoa powder, which is very bitter, therefore some sweetener is needed to make the recipe good. Carob powder is not bitter like cocoa, so if you used it, you could probably cut the sweetener somewhat. But carob doesn’t taste much like chocolate, so don’t expect that if you use it. It doesn’t have fat like cocoa does so the recipe might be kind of dry or chalky. It might need more coconut milk or maybe some oil. There’s disagreement about how much carob to substitute for cocoa. Some sources say 1:1, some say more carob, 1.5 or two times as much. I would add it gradually and taste, and the same with the sweetener. But what I would actually do if the main concern were sweetener (and not something else like the caffeine in cocoa) is just use cocoa and address the concern about sweetener in some other way. For example, Kelly’s original Spunky Coconut recipe that mine is based on uses coconut palm sugar, which I have recently started using myself. It has a great caramel-y flavor and a low glycemic index, so it ought to be easier on your system than regular sugar. Agave is another possibility for a low-glycemic index sweetener. It seems to be controversial, but I personally feel fine about occasionally using raw organic agave. Another possibility is using banana for part of the sweetener, though that of course will give it a banana flavor. Banana and Nutella are kind of a classic combination. I haven’t tried it, but here’s a recipe here using caramelized banana and agave syrup for sweetening: http://frenchforfoodies.com/tag/homemade-nutella/. It’s quite a different recipe than the one here, it has dairy and no hazelnuts, just hazelnut oil. But it’s a pretty small batch, it might be fun to try and see what it’s like. Good luck! Please tell me how your experiments turn out.
Nutritous and wonderful recipe you have shared to us. This would perfect for family bonding. I will not make this very sweet, I will just minimize in adding sugar.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Trish, let me know how you like it.
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