Hey there, chocolate lover–looking for healthier alternatives to satisfy your sweet tooth? Well, look no further because I have the perfect solution – an amazingly delicious sugar-free chocolate chips recipe that just happens to be dairy free as well.
Yes, you heard me, I’m talking delightful little morsels of chocolaty goodness without any problematic sugar. Not only will these homemade sugar-free chocolate chips satisfy your cravings, but they’re so much healthier than regular chocolate chips.
Not only that, but I’ve got not just one, but three ways for you to make your own homemade chocolatey morsels, and one of them is frugal beyond belief.
There’s simply no need to spend a fortune on sugar-free chocolate chips when, with just a few basic ingredients you can have a stash of delicious sugar-free chocolate chips for using in your favorite recipes or enjoyed straight out of the bag.
So grab your apron and let’s get started on this low carb, sugar-free chocolate chip adventure!
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Why Make Your Own Homemade Chocolate Chips?
Ever since my son was diagnosed with life-threatening food allergies, baking became a challenge. I really wanted to make him special treats occasionally but some ingredients like chocolate chips were hard to find without dairy in them.
As time went on, dairy-free chocolate chips showed up in the stores, but their price was a little prohibitive for a frugal shopper like myself. (And allergy-free white chocolate chips are still pretty much non existent.)
If you are, like us, on a special diet where you need to avoid
- dairy
- sugar, or you wish to avoid
- trans-fats
- artificial or natural flavorings that are often in store-bought chips?
And maybe you just can’t stomach the price of store bought specialty chocolate chips? Like those ones that cost about $4.50 for a measly 10 ounce bag? Ouch!!! Or perhaps you’re in the middle of baking and have run out of chips and need some more…..
3 Great Versions
Yes, I could have just had one recipe for these keto-friendly chocolate chips, but I’m sharing three, so you can make whichever works best for you depending on what you need to use them for and/or what ingredients you have.
3 Ingredient Chocolate Chips for No Bake Treats
A great 3 ingredient chocolate coconut oil-based recipe that’s super easy but only for snacking and making no bake treats
The Best Sugar-free Chocolate Chips Ever
So that might be a little too ambitious of a title, but–maybe not.
For this recipe you use cocoa butter, cocoa, sweeteners, and a few more extra special ingredients. They’re a little more work, but the result just might be your favorite chocolate ever. You’re seriously pretty much guaranteed to love this recipe.
2 Ingredient Keto Chocolate Chips
Another super easy recipe where you simply take unsweetened chocolate and sweeten it with your favorite low carb sweetener. Perfect for all your homemade keto baked goods.
How Can You Use These Homemade Chocolate Chips?
You can use these keto friendly chocolate chips for baking and in any kind of regular or keto recipe where you’d use dark chocolate chips, but take care to choose the right version for whatever you’re making.
Here are some options:
Basically these chocolate chips are the perfect addition to all of your sugar free desserts.
Ingredients
Here is some information on some of the ingredients for all 3 versions of these delicious sugar-free chocolate chips. For the amounts, scroll down to the Recipe Card where all of the recipe details are included.
Will These Chips Hold Their Shape?
Yes, but that depends.
It depends on which version of the recipe you make.
Coconut Oil Version (aka Don’t Try This at Home)
This version will 100% not hold their shape when baking . There are some who say you can freeze the homemade keto chocolate chips first, and I know it worked for me once in the distant past in one recipe, but I’ve tried it numerous times since and frozen chips or not, it doesn’t work.
Here’s what you end up with, with an unwelcome bonus of melted burnt chocolate chips all over the bottom of your oven if you use a baking stone like I did.
NOT great.
As our youngest says, that’s like saying you can put an ice cube in a cookie and assume it will keep its shape when you bake it.
Not entirely, but you get the picture.
Cocoa Butter Option
This option holds together pretty well but it’s not perfect. It works better if you freeze the chips first.
The Best Option for Baking
The one that holds together the best for your low carb and keto baking is Version 3.
Recipe Notes and Substitutions
- Pretty much any healthy sweetener can be used for these forgiving recipes. Low-carb sweetener options include organic erythritol, allulose, or stevia extract, or xylitol to taste.
For AIP, use honey, maple syrup (read Choosing Maple Syrup), or sucanat or coconut sugar. If you use a liquid sweetener, I haven’t tried it, but it should work, but honey and maple syrup are sweeter, so you might want to use a bit less. Read this post for tips on substituting sweeteners for more information. - For AIP (or to avoid the stimulating effect of cocoa), in addition to changing the sweetener, use carob instead of cocoa. If you do use carob, however, you’ll want to reduce the sweetener by about 1/4 to 1/3, since carob is sweeter. If you like things quite sweet, however, then by all means, don’t reduce it!
How to Make Homemade Carob Chips
You can use these same recipes to make your own super frugal Homemade Carob Chips too!
As mentioned in the special diet section, however, you’ll want to reduce the sweetener by about 1/4 to 1/3, since carob is sweeter. If you love sweet things, you might want to leave the recipe as is.
Molds for Making Homemade Chocolate Chips
Most of the time I make Homemade Chocolate Chunks from this recipe, since it’s sooo easy. Here’s what they look like.
However, if you want to make cute Homemade Chips like those in the main photos of this post, get these molds!
I Recommend
Chocolate Chip Mold
- These are perfect for making cookies and muffins.
Or these:
I Recommend
Webake 202 Cavity Chocolate Chip Mold (2 pack)
Make Homemade Chocolate Chips (and more) with these great flexible, easy release, easy clean chocolate chip molds. You get 2 molds in each pack so you can make lots of chips at once!
Oven, freezer, microwave, and dishwasher safe. You can also use these molds to make all kinds of flavors of chips, homemade gummy canies, as well as homemade pet food and more.
Delicious Flavor Variations
These homemade low carb chocolate chips are so delicious as is, but you can make your own sugar free flavored chips too. How about….
- Mint – Add few drops of Peppermint oil or extract
- Coconut – add a few drops of coconut extract
- Spicy – toss in a few drops of Tabasco or chili powder or chili flakes as desired
- Peanut Butter – add some peanut butter powder to the chips
- Berry – add in some berry powder or ground dried or freeze dried berries
- Almond – add a few drops of almond extract
- Orange – add a few drops of orange extract
- Milk Chocolate – add about 1 tablespoon of powdered milk to the melted chocolate, stirring gently
- White Chocolate – You can use version 2 (the one with cocoa butter and unsweetened chocolate powder) and by leaving out the cocoa powder, can make white chocolate chips. However, this sugar-free white chocolate chip recipe is much better.
How to Store
You can store these easy homemade sugar free chocolate chips several ways–in a bag in the pantry, or in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer.
I highly recommend that you don’t store them on the counter, because soon you’ll have nothing left to store, if you know what I mean.
Coconut Oil Sugar-free Chocolate Chips
Cocoa Butter and Cocoa Sugar-free Chocolate Chips
2 Ingredient Sugar-free Chocolate Chips
Coconut Oil Sugar-free Chocolate Chips
-
Melt coconut oil over a very low heat. Remove from heat.
-
Stir in cocoa, sweetener, and vanilla. (If you heat over too high of a heat or don’t remove from the heat, the coconut oil will separate from the cocoa when cooling. You can still eat it, but it won’t be as smooth.)
Cocoa Butter Chocolate Chips
-
Melt cocoa butter over very low heat in a medium pan.
-
Transfer cocoa butter to a medium bowl.
-
Add remaining ingredients and mix well. I’ve used my Bamix immersion blender with great success. You could also put the mixture in a blender, but it will be messier to clean up :-).
2 Ingredient Chocolate Chips
To Make Chunks
-
Pour mixture into an 8×8 baking pan (other pans will work as well, but your chunks will be thinner or thicker, depending on the size you use.)
-
Use a knife or spatula to break large pieces out of the pan. Chop on cutting board to desired size with a sharp knife.
To Make Chips
-
If you want to make chips instead of chunks, pour into a chocolate chip mold or put in pastry icing bag, let the mixture chill a bit and then pipe onto parchment paper.
-
Let sit to solidify, or chill in fridge or freezer.
-
Store in freezer bag or air tight container in fridge or freezer until ready to use. Version 3 may be stored in the panty. Versions 1 and 2 will turn soft at room temperature to varying degrees.
Nutrition Values are for Version 1.
Serving: 1cup | Calories: 699kcal | Carbohydrates: 17g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 77g | Saturated Fat: 65g | Sodium: 200mg | Potassium: 441mg | Fiber: 10g | Sugar: 1g | Calcium: 37mg | Iron: 4mg | Net Carbs: 7g
Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is merely an approximation. Optional ingredients are not included and when there is an alternative, the primary ingredient is typically used. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on this site. Erythritol carbs are not included in carb counts since they have been shown not to impact blood sugar. Net carbs are the total carbs minus fiber.
How would you use these homemade chocolate chips?
This post was originally published April 25, 2011. An improved recipe was written on July 5, 2012. The posts were combined and more information was added on August 9, 2023.
