Creamy, lush, chocolaty and full of toasted hazelnut flavor this homemade vegan ‘Nutella’ is much better than store-bought. Enjoy this naturally dairy-free and gluten-free chocolate hazelnut spread on toast, banana waffles, in my Chocolate Hazelnut Tart or right off the spoon!
Easy to make with simple ingredients, this vegan nutella is a healthy chocolate spread that tastes so much better than store-bought. No fillers, nothing artificial, just hazelnut chocolaty goodness!
While the original Nutella is a “hazelnut spread with cocoa”, hazelnuts and chocolate aren’t the first two ingredients we would expect in a seemly basic recipe. The store-bought version ingredient list goes like this: “Sugar, Palm Oil, Hazelnuts, Skim Milk, Cocoa, Soy Lecithin, Vanillin: an artificial flavor.”
If we want a chocolate spread with lots of hazelnut and hazelnut flavor, then we need to…push the chocolate and the hazelnuts to the top of the list of ingredients!
What is in Homemade Vegan Nutella?
There are only 5 ingredients in this easy and simple chocolate hazelnut spread recipe, and it’s ready in under 30 minutes!
- Hazelnuts
- Semi-sweet Chocolate
- Coconut Oil
- Vanilla
- Salt
My homemade recipe is also vegan so it doesn’t contain any skim milk powder. During testing, I didn’t find it necessary to substitute it either. I love the rich chocolate and hazelnut flavors and didn’t feel the need to mute them at all with more ingredients or fillers.
Rather than palm oil, I use a small amount of refined coconut oil. This little bit of oil makes the chocolate hazelnut spread smoother and easier to blend up. Refined coconut oil has had the coconut flavor removed so it’s neutral tasting. I’ve tested this recipe with regular coconut oil and the taste of coconut was hardly detectable, so use what you have. If you really don’t like coconut at all, go with the refined.
How to Make Homemade Nutella
1) Roast the hazelnuts: Roasting hazelnuts brings out their flavor, making it toastier and more robust. The heat also loosens up the hazelnuts natural oils which makes blending easier.
2) Remove the hazelnut skins: The hazelnuts will start shedding their skins while they are roasting. The skins are somewhat bitter so we want to remove most of them. Fewer skins makes for a smoother spread, too! You can remove the skins by rubbing them in a clean tea towel. Personally, I don’t like the extra laundry so I just rub the hazelnuts between my hands over the baking sheet and immediately transfer each handful to the food processor or blender. Some of the skins will resist, but don’t worry if you can’t get them all off!
3) Blend the hazelnuts into hazelnut butter: Use either a high speed blender or a food processor, although a high speed blender will give you the smoothest results. Blending takes 8-10 minutes so we need to be patient. It’s well worth the wait!
4) Melt the chocolate and coconut oil: Melting the chocolate and the coconut oil primes these ingredients for blending into the hazelnut butter. You can do this over a double-boiler on the stove or in the microwave. Chocolate burns very easily – once it burns, it seizes and becomes unusable. When melting chocolate in the microwave, do so in 20 second bursts just until the chocolate is melted, stirring each time you check on it.
5) Blend the melted chocolate, coconut oil, vanilla and salt into the hazelnut butter: At the end of blending, the spread will be quite runny because of the heat generated during blending. Once the vegan Nutella spread comes back down to room temperature, things will thicken up nicely. I find chilling the spread until it is firm, and then taking it out of the fridge and leaving it on the counter produces the best consistency and is the nicest for spreading. If you keep it in the fridge, it will be too firm to spread without tearing your bread (but is still such a treat eaten off a spoon!)
Best Chocolate to Use in Chocolate Hazelnut Spread
Use a chocolate that you really enjoy eating on its own. If you wouldn’t snack on it, then don’t use it in this recipe because the flavor of the chocolate is one of the two main flavors. If the chocolate tastes waxy or “cheap” then the chocolate hazelnut spread likely won’t taste great either.
I like using a semi-sweet chocolate for this homemade vegan nutella recipe. There’s no added sugar in my recipe. The bit of sugar in the chocolate is just enough sweetness for the final chocolate spread. If you use chocolate chips, again, make sure they taste really good and melt nicely in your mouth. Not all chocolate chips are created equal – some are very waxy and barely taste of chocolate, while others melt beautifully and are good enough to snack on! You can also choose to use a good quality chocolate bar – chop it into equal-sized pieces before melting.
Doubling (or Tripling) this Homemade Vegan Nutella Recipe?
I have tried doubling and even tripling this hazelnut chocolate spread recipe. I have found that despite having a high-powered blender, doing one batch at a time yields the best results. The blender tends to overheat from being on for so long, especially once the melted chocolate is added after making the hazelnut butter. Doing one batch at a time is less frustrating and likely takes just as much time considering I had to keep stopping the blender to let its motor cool down when tripling the recipe.
Need more Chocolate Inspiration? Check out these other Vegan Chocolate Treats!
Vegan Nutella Rocky Road Dessert Pizza
Strawberry Galette with Hazelnut Chocolate Cream
Chocolate Cupcakes with Whipped Chocolate Ganache
Chocolate Sheet Cake with Fluffy Espresso Frosting
Chocolate Bundt Cake with Salted Peanut Butter Glaze
Or when in doubt…homemade vegan nutella on toast with all the fixins!
If you make this Homemade Vegan Nutella, please give it a rating in the recipe card and leave a comment below! Follow along on Instagram where you can tag me in your creations using my recipes. I love seeing what you’re cooking! You can also follow me on Pinterest for vegan recipe inspiration and on Facebook. Thank you for reading!
Homemade Vegan Nutella
Ingredients
- 1 cup whole, raw hazelnuts
- 2 tbsp coconut oil (use refined if you want to avoid coconut undertones, otherwise it gives a nice flavor)
- ½ cup chopped vegan semi-sweet chocolate or chocolate chips (use chocolate you enjoy snacking on)
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°F.
- Toast your hazelnuts on a cookie sheet in the oven set at 325°F for 10-15 minutes. Watch them carefully so they don't burn. Give the tray a little shake every few minutes to help even toasting. Once the nuts become fragrant, remove them from the oven. Let cool for a few minutes and then it's time to get the skins off. You can either:•place them on one half of a tea towel, then fold the other side of the tea towel over and rub back and forth to remove the skins, or,• take handfuls of nuts at a time between your hands and rub back and forth to let the skins fall down onto the cookie sheet, placing the skinned hazelnuts into the blender. Don't worry about the skins that are stubborn and won't come off.
- Place the toasted, skinned hazelnuts into a high-speed blender or food processor. Blend them on a medium setting until a nut butter starts to form, scraping down the sides as necessary. Turn the speed up once the nut butter has formed. A smooth nut butter can take 5-10 minutes depending on the appliance.
- In the meantime, place the coconut oil and chocolate in a microwavable bowl. Heat in 20-30 second bursts, stirring well each time to ensure even heating. Chocolate burns very easily and will become unusable once it seizes.
- Once the nut butter is smooth, pour the melted chocolate/oil, vanilla and salt into the blender. Process on high until the spread is smooth, about 3 minutes, scraping down occasionally. It will be quite runny at this point but will thicken once it comes back down to room temperature. To firm it up, refrigerate it for couple of hours and then take it out, leaving it at room temperature for an hour gives the nicest results. From there, keep it at room temperature if using within a week. If you keep it in the fridge, it will be firm and hard to spread but easy to eat off a spoon 😉 This spread will keep several weeks stored in an airtight container in the fridge.
Nutrition Info:
The Nutrition Information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the Nutrition Information for any recipe on this site cannot be guaranteed.
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This recipe was first published on Crumbs & Caramel June 06, 2018. The post was updated on April 28, 2020 with improved educational value and new images.
Andrea
Saturday 18th of July 2020
I did not discover Nutella until visiting Italy for the first time in the late 90s. I had no idea what it was before then and I quickly became addicted. This biggest issue, which I discovered later, is they use palm oil and obviously loads of sugar. I will give your recipe a try to make my own. Thanks for the inspiration!
Crumbs & Caramel
Friday 7th of August 2020
I feel the same way, although I didn't get to discover it on a fun trip to Italy! Hope you enjoy this homemade version! Thanks for trying it! ~ Bronwyn :)