The BEST Chocolate Sauce

The best chocolate sauce is easy to make, so delicious, and can be used hot or cold!

What Kind Of Chocolate Makes The Best Chocolate Sauce?

There’s no need to melt any chocolate for this recipe, so you’ll never run the risk of scorching or breaking the emulsion, which can happen when chocolate is heated too fast or boils, leaving you with a gritty, oily mess. 

This chocolate sauce uses cocoa powder instead, for an easy, mess-free sauce.

What’s The Difference Between Natural Cocoa And Dutch Cocoa?

Like chocolate, cocoa powder comes from cocoa beans. The beans are fermented, dried, and roasted. The papery skins on the outside of the roasted beans are removed and the beans are then cracked into cocoa nibs. The nibs are pressed, similar to how olive oil is made, to remove a large percentage of the cocoa butter from the beans, leaving behind a pasty chocolate liquor. The liquor is dried and then ground into unsweetened cocoa powder.

You’ll likely find two types of cocoa powder in the grocery store: natural/regular, and Dutch-processed. Regular cocoa has an intense chocolate flavor and is slightly acidic. Dutch-processed cocoa, however, is treated with an alkali to reduce the acidity and offer a more mild and mellow flavor. The alkali treatment also darkens the cocoa.

The two types of cocoa aren’t necessarily interchangeable in baking, but they are in this chocolate sauce recipe.

How To Make Chocolate Taste More Like Chocolate

Chocolate and cocoa powder taste pretty good on their own, but there are ingredients that can make chocolate taste chocolaty, and you probably already have them in your pantry: brown sugar, instant coffee, vanilla, and salt.

All four of these ingredients work together to make chocolate, or in this case, cocoa powder, taste deeper and richer.

How To Make The BEST Chocolate Sauce

Because this chocolate sauce comes together so quickly, I like to measure all of the ingredients ahead of time and keep them nearby.

Start by making a simple syrup in a saucepan with water, brown sugar, and a little bit of corn syrup, gently heated over medium-low heat. The corn syrup acts like an insurance policy, keeping the sugar from crystallizing in case the mixture boils by accident. You’ll want to keep this to a low simmer at all times though, stirring frequently. If the mixture becomes too hot and begins to boil, simply move the pan off the heat and stir.

Once the brown sugar is dissolved, the cocoa powder, instant coffee, salt, and vanilla are added all at once. Whisk this mixture like crazy for two to three minutes, until all of the cocoa powder is dissolved. Once the sauce is smooth, it can be transferred to a glass bowl or jar, covered, and refrigerated.

The sauce will look a little thin at this point, but will thicken in the refrigerator within two to three hours.

Uses For Chocolate Sauce

This dairy-free chocolate sauce can be used in so many ways. I often make a flourless chocolate cake, using this chocolate sauce, doubled, and five eggs. That’s it. Below are some of my other favorite things to make with it:

• Mix with coffee and cream for a morning mocha
• Mix with hot milk or coconut milk for hot chocolate
• Mix warm chocolate sauce with a little bit of melted coconut oil to create “Magic Shell”
• Add to whipped cream to make a quick mousse
• Add to iced coffee for an iced mocha
• Drizzle over ice cream
• Use as a fruit dip
• Add ⅛ teaspoon of any extract to flavor the sauce, like peppermint, almond, or orange