Healthy Hazelnut Chocolate Spread (Nutella)

Nutella has always been my secret, guilty pleasure but darn it, all store bought nutella has so much processed sugar it’s not even funny. I decided to make this purely out of ingredients I consider to be much healthier.

Tip: You’ll be in heaven if you eat this with hazelnuts!

(Yields: 1 jar, Serving: 30, Prep time: 5 mins, Cook time: 5 mins)

Ingredients

• 2 cups roasted unsalted hazelnuts (see note*)

• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (I use Hershey’s)

• 8 pitted medjool dates

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk

Ingredient Notes:

Get the best quality hazelnuts (most expensive ones), because that’s what gives the nutella that rich taste. I get mine from Trader Joe’s and it has that distinctive hazelnut smell. Lower quality hazelnuts won’t give you the same taste.

Instructions

Here’s a look at three of our main ingredients:

If your dates contain seeds, remove them.

Add all the ingredients except for the almond milk into the blender. This includes the roasted hazelnuts, cocoa powder, pitted dates and olive oil.

(Important: To do this well, you need a good blender. I recommend Vitamix!)

Blend for about 2 minutes, using the food tamper if necessary so things don’t get stuck.

Add almond milk once everything is relatively smooth.

I tested by adding half of the almond milk I listed on this recipe (1/4 cup) and this was the result:

As you can see, the texture is much thicker and darker. At this point, you may wish to drain some of the oil.

So afterwards, I added 1/4 cup more almond milk and it WORKED! Now, it has the texture of what I thought looked a lot like store bought nutella. We’re rollin’, baby!

What I learned: The smoothness of the nutella purely depends on how much almond milk is added. If you want a thicker and chunkier version, add less almond milk. If you want a smoother and creamier version, add more.

After blending for another 3-5 minutes, it should soon be smooth and ready to go!

Final Results:

I have to say, this is my pride and joy, because I could finally make something that was one of my all time favourite snacks into something that doesn’t have a whole heap of processed sugar and other stuff I don’t know about. I consider sugar from natural fruits much better because it also contain nutrients from the fruits, and dates are healthy fruits I’d want to eat anyway. I just love the taste of this. Also, I didn’t see a need to go overboard with the dates as I like that subtle sweetness. Things really don’t need to be saturated with sugar or sweeteners to be enjoyable!