This homemade vegan nutella recipe is made with whole foods and only takes a few minutes to produce a delicious, hazelnut butter that is also dairy-free, gluten-free, and refined-sugar free!
Quick Homemade Vegan Nutella
This delicious healthier homemade vegan nutella is made with all natural ingredients and the perfect snack when you need a chocolate pick me up.
What Is Nutella? Oh, You Probably know..
Still I should review.
I’m sure you have heard of the commercial chocolate hazelnut butter sold as “nutella”, right? So you know how people go wild over it.
One rumor I read is that a certain ivy league university had to ban it on campus at one point because students were stealing entire jars from the cafeteria. So it’s popularity is legend, but so is its unhealthiness. Why? Well just look at the ingredients. Here is a useful breakdown of the famous spread’s nutritional status as well.
That is why, I, like so many before me, have stepped forward to create a healthy version, a vegan version, a wonderful version.
How Healthy is My Vegan Nutella Recipe?
How healthy, you ask? Well hazelnuts provide all the benefits of nuts, including protein, fiber and essential minerals. And quality dark chocolate is excellent at boosting metabolism and mood.
And I even added a bit of Maca powder as an option, an adaptogen that has known positive hormone-balancing effects. For women especially it is know to reduce painful cramps, hot flashes, and calm hormone-sparked mood swings.
So we have established this nutella recipe is healthy, but it is also easy, taking only a few minutes.
How Easy is My Vegan Nutella Recipe?
Very. Because my recipe does not involve – as most do (google vegan nutella) – the initial step of roasting whole hazelnuts, and dry scrubbing them to remove skins, and grinding them down into hazelnut meal.
My recipe skips ahead and starts with hazelnut meal or flour, if you prefer to call it that. Just press the recipe-remote-control forward button. So simple, right? But you must use a quality and fresh hazelnut flour so I recommend Nuts.com’s version.
If you have a minute, let me tell you how my mind arrived here.
I, in my true fashion, wanted to make from scratch a healthy version of nutella to use in my 3-ingredient crispy chocolate bark as I promised earlier.
However, I, also in my true fashion, did not have time for that whole palava (thank you for that word Downton Abby), of buying expensive hazelnuts, roasting them for 20 minutes, then working the skins off with a kitchen towel, and then grinding them in a high speed processor or blender to transform them into a hazelnut meal.
And then I stepped in my pantry and spotted a big bag of hazelnut meal sitting on my flour shelf. (Yes, I have an entire shelf of flours; I am a flour collector, haha).
Anyway, the idea sprung into my head to skip the roasting step. I do think it is important that you use a high quality brand of hazelnut meal or flour, and that it is fresh to ensure the best recipe results. Because for this to work, the meal must be blended or processed to a near nut butter. So the flour must not be dried out or the oils won’t emerge in the blending.
The steps are quite simple. Basically I am of the throw-all-ingredients-into-a-mini-processer-at-the-same-time camp! And this recipe is just that! Do it my way, and you’ll be dipping your finger spoon into a fresh batch of delicious healthy chocolate hazelnut “nutella” in a few minutes..
Why is This Vegan Nutella Recipe so Good?
- It is a faster recipe than most homemade vegan nutella recipes
- It is made with very few ingredients
- It’s deeply chocolatey
- It resembles the famous spread yet will help you feel great
- It is dairy-free, vegan and even paleo
What Can You Do With Vegan Nutella?
- Use as a dip with cookies or pretzels
- Spread on toast, pancakes, waffles
- Top on ice cream
- Mix into yogurt, oats or chia pudding
- Eat from the jar with a spoon
- Use a filling or frosting for cupcakes, donuts, cookies, macaroons or more
Other Recipes That Use Vegan Nutella
Goji Berry Nutella Breakfast
Vegan Nutella Bark
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Make Healthy Homemade Vegan Nutella in 2-minutes.
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cup hazelnut meal
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup full-fat coconut milk (Do not refrigerate can; shake before you open so the fat is not separated out)
- 1/4 cup maple syrup (Start with 1/8 cup and taste-test before adding the rest)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- pinch of salt
Optional
- 1/2 tbsp maca powder (optional for positive hormone-balancing effects)
- 1 tsp cold brewed coffee (optional, deepens chocolate flavor)
My Equipment
Instructions
Prep
- Pop the hazelnut meal/flour into the food processor (or high speed blender) and process until the meal becomes pasty and butter.
- Melt the chocolate in a 2-cup pyrex measuring cup in the microwave for 60 seconds. Stir until all is melted.
Make Vegan Nutella
- Into the melted chocolate measuring cup, pour in the coconut milk, 1/8 cup of the syrup, vanilla, salt, and optional maca and coffee. Stir with a spoon until combined.
- Add this chocolate mixture to the hazelnut flour blend in the food processor (or blender) and process until you have a smooth, creamy nutella. Taste-test here and decide if you need the remaining 1/8 cup maple syrup both for sweetness and texture (some people want their nutella runny; others want it stiffer - you do you!).
- Store your new gorgeous nutella in a covered glass jar in the refrigerator. Probably will last a week or more refrigerated. Totally irrelevant information, I know.
Nutrition
Dee Dine is founder of Green Smoothie Gourmet, a plant based recipe blog, and author of the recent cookbook, Crazy Healthy with 4 Ingredients . On this blog you’ll find incredibly easy recipes with hidden veggies for anyone wanting to eat healthier, regardless of diet. Dee has graduate degrees in sciences and journalism. More about Dee Dine here.
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