This homemade chocolate sauce is rich, delicious, easy to make, and much better than store-bought chocolate syrup!
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👩🏻🍳 Why You'll Love This Homemade Chocolate Sauce
It is hard to go wrong with chocolate sauce, whether you buy it from the store or make it yourself. But my family agrees with me that this recipe produces a higher level of chocolatey deliciousness. The rich flavor is just divine!
The only problem is that now we can never go back to store-bought chocolate sauce, ha! But that is OK, because this chocolate sauce is not difficult at all to make.
The secret to making this sauce so delicious is to use coffee instead of water. It doesn't make the sauce taste like coffee, but it adds a depth and complexity to the sauce that is a perfect complement to the sweetness of all that sugar.
And, yes, there is a lot of sugar in this. It's a dessert, folks! Just don't eat spoonful after spoonful of it, as hard as it might be to resist that! A simpler version of Easy Chocolate Glaze with Powdered Sugar can also be made.
Or check out this indulgent toffee sauce, perfect for topping ice cream, cakes, pies, or anything you want!
🥘 Ingredients Needed
- cocoa powder - gives your chocolate syrup a rich, chocolatey taste.
- white and brown sugar - two different kinds of sugar bring different kinds of sweetness.
- salt - helps balance out all of the sweetness.
- coffee - gives your chocolate sauce a deeper and more complex flavor.
- maple syrup - for a little bit of extra sweetness.
- semisweet morsels - ensures that the sauce has some thickness to it.
🔪 Instructions
- Mix together the cocoa powder, sugar, brown sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan.
- Pour in the coffee and stir until combined.
- Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and continue to stir while simmering for 5 minutes.
- Remove the mixture from the heat and add your maple syrup and semisweet morsels, then mix until everything is melted and combined.
- Allow to cool and serve however you like!
- This sauce is good on fruit, ice cream, as a dip for cookies or graham crackers, and more.
👪 FAQs
Homemade, of course!
Typically, they're mostly the same, although sometimes chocolate syrup also includes corn syrup, which gives it a thinner, more syrup-y consistency. Chocolate sauce, then, tends to be on the thicker side.
It will keep longer if stored covered in the fridge, but it will last at least a couple of days at room temperature if stored properly. The sauce will thicken considerably in the cold, but you can microwave it to thin it out again.
One way is to allow the temperature to come down; when hot, the sauce will be much runnier, but at room temperature or chilled it will be much thicker.
You could also take about a tablespoon of corn starch, dissolve it in water, and stir it into the sauce. This will probably work best in the heating step, but play around with adding it afterward as well and see what happens!
Finally, if you include more chocolate morsels, odds are the sauce will be on the thicker (and more chocolate-y!) side.
Kept covered in the fridge, your chocolate sauce should be good for 3 months or so. You can also freeze it if you do so carefully, and it can last up for a year like this. Just be sure to store it in an airtight container. It may also be wise to press a layer of plastic wrap to the surface, which can help prevent crystallizing.
If you follow the correct process, it's completely safe to do so! Check out more information here if you want to give away chocolate sauce as a gift or sell your homemade sauce!
📖 Variations and Serving Suggestions
- While this sauce would be delicious just eaten by the spoonful, you'll get the most use out of it for dipping and coating things like fruit, cookies, marshmallows, and ice cream.
- You could also stir this into some milk to make a delicious chocolate beverage. Microwave it for a homemade hot cocoa!
- Toss in a little bit of butter to give your sauce a new level of richness.
- The coffee in this sauce doesn't come through much in the flavor, so if you'd like to accentuate it sprinkle in some espresso powder.
- A few drops of an extract of your choice could change up this sauce entirely. Some mint extract would be great for Christmas or even St. Patrick's Day, and an orange or hazelnut extract will change up the flavor of this sauce deliciously!
🥗 Suggested Desserts
This chocolate sauce would be a decadent addition to these desserts! Drizzle it on top of this Chocolate Orange Cake or try it on another recipe, like Chocolate Rice Krispies Treats!
🍫 Additional Chocolate Recipes
If this chocolate syrup recipe has you craving more chocolate, try out some of these recipes!
Chocolate Sauce Recipe
Love this recipe? Awesome! Please give it a 5 star ⭐ rating below! And if you make this, snap a photo and tag me on Instagram. You can find me at DizzyBusyandHungry or #dizzybusyandhungry!
📋 Recipe Card
Best Homemade Chocolate Sauce
Ingredients
- ¾ cup cocoa powder
- ¾ cup sugar
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup cold coffee (can be decaf or regular)
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup semisweet morsels
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, mix the cocoa powder, sugar, brown sugar, and salt.¾ cup cocoa powder, ¾ cup sugar, ¾ cup brown sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt
- Add the coffee and vanilla and whisk until well combined.1 cup cold coffee, 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- Place the saucepan over medium heat and bring it to boiling, stirring constantly.
- Reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes, continuing to stir.
- Remove from heat and the semisweet morsels, stirring until they are all melted.¼ cup semisweet morsels
- Allow to cool and serve over ice cream, fruit, etc.
- Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator. It will get very thick when cold, but you can microwave it briefly to get a thinner sauce.
Notes
- Don't have brewed coffee handy? Go ahead and dissolve a rounded teaspoon of instant into one cup of water. No need to even heat it up!
- Note that it takes quite a bit of whisking to get the cocoa powder to incorporate. And even then a lot of it seems to sit on top. Don't worry about it, just keep going, it will eventually all come together.
- Drizzle this sauce on fruit, cookies, ice cream and more.
- Mix your chocolate syrup into some milk for a delicious chocolate-y beverage. You could also microwave this for hot chocolate.
- For added richness, stir in a tablespoon or so of butter.
- Add espresso powder if you want to accentuate the coffee flavor.
- Using flavored extracts can change the flavor of this sauce. Try mint, orange, or hazelnut to get different variations of this sauce.
Video
Nutrition
Nutritional information is an estimate. The nutritional values for your final dish may vary based on measuring differences and products used.
Update Notes: This post was originally published in May 2015, but was republished with tips, step by step photos, and a recipe change in November 2020.
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Happy cooking!
Joanne/WineLady Cooks says
Your recipe sounds so easy I definitely will give it a try - I do love chocolate!
Kathy @ Beyond the Chicken Coop says
I need to give this a try. I won't tell anyone there's coffee though....otherwise they will say that's all they will taste. I like to keep a few secrets!
Adelina Priddis says
delicious! I love homemade chocolate sauce. Thanks for sharing on Weekend Bites
Lorelai @ Life With Lorelai says
Okay, what's not to LOVE! Your chocolate sauce looks wonderful, and the recipe certainly seems easy enough. Thanks for sharing at the #HomeMattersParty - we love partying with you! Hope to see you next Friday. 🙂
~Lorelai
Life With Lorelai
Tianna says
this looks delicious! thanks for sharing ♥
Evija says
This looks lovely ! give me chocolate sauce and strawberries any day! Thank you for sharing and joining our Oh My Heartsie Girl Wordless Wednesday Link Party.. Have a great day, co-host Evija @Fromevijawithlove x
Barbara | Creative Culinary says
Sounds great; I love making my own chocolate sauce but between us girls? Yes, so agree about the coffee but I might slip in a bit of bourbon too. 🙂
Kristin King says
Ah, great idea! I am going to try that! 🙂
Choclette says
This looks so good I want to go and make chocolate sauce right away. I bet the coffee gives it a bit of a kick.
Carole West - Garden Up Green says
Strawberries and chocolate- how can you go wrong. This looks really good a sweet treat once in awhile is necessary.
Carole
krista says
This looks delicious! I've wanted to make homemade chocolate syrup for a long time, I'll have to try this. Does it dissolve well in milk?