Indulge your Valentine with this creamy and rich (vegan & Paleo!) homemade hot fudge. We love it over frozen yogurt and also use it on nice cream! This vegan hot fudge recipe has a base of cashew butter and coconut oil!
Contents
The BEST (Healthier) Homemade Hot Fudge
Hot fudge sundae anyone?
This healthy homemade hot fudge is made with just a few ingredients, and comes together in a saucepan in minutes. Store at room temperature for a couple of weeks, or in the refrigerator for a few months.
This recipe yields a dark chocolate, chewy, and dense fudge sauce, perfect for topping ALL the things.
For this hot fudge, you’ll need:
- Cashew butter (you can make your own with a high speed blender!)
- Natural cocoa powder
- Coconut oil
- Walnut oil (or grapeseed – this keeps the coconut oil from solidifying when poured on ice cream!)
- Maple syrup or date syrup
- Vanilla
- Sea salt
My son will always sit still for ice cream. He usually gets homemade “nice cream” (processed frozen bananas), but we occasionally buy frozen yogurt. After making this incredible Paleo Fudge for the holidays, I was inspired to make a healthy hot fudge.
The first few attempts weren’t perfect- a little too much coconut oil resulted in more of a magic shell effect than hot fudge. But we finally did get it just perfect — look how it poured!
These frozen yogurt healthy hot fudge sundaes are definitely on our menu this Valentines Day.
How to Make Hot Fudge
This hot fudge just requires a few steps!
- In a small saucepan, heat the oils, and then mix in the cashew butter. Stir until combined.
- Add the rest of the ingredients. and whisk until warmed through. Removed from heat.
- Store at room temperature (it will solidify in the refrigerator). If you’d like to store it in the refrigerator, gently heat it in a double boiler to make it pourable again.
Other ideas for Valentine’s Day? This Fruit Pizza would be amazing with red and pink fruit. And of course, these Valentine’s Love Truffles (a box of chocolates made with fruit, nuts, and dark chocolate). I posted this recipe for the Christmas season, but there is absolutely no reason not to make these Coconut Mint Truffles for V-Day.
Tips for the Healthy Hot Fudge
- I use cashew butter in this recipe because I find it has the mildest flavor of the nut butters. This sauce doesn’t really taste nutty or have a cashew flavor because the chocolate overpowers the nut butter. If you have almond butter or sunflower butter, both of those will work as subs, but those sauces will have more prominent nutty flavors <– which definitely wouldn’t be a bad thing!
- To keep this sauce “fudgey” instead of turning into a magic shell, I use a combination of coconut oil and walnut oil. Only walnut oil can be used, but all coconut oil will harden the sauce when poured over a frozen treat. Grape seed oil and extra light olive oils (not extra virgin) both would work in place of the walnut oil because they have neutral flavors.
- For the Family:Â This sauce is high in fat, but they are healthy fats. I am much more concerned about sugar than healthy fats, so this is the type of recipe I like to give my son. Simply lightly sweetened with honey, and no weird ingredients.
Homemade Hot Fudge
Ingredients
- 6 tablespoons cashew butter
- 6 tablespoons natural cocoa powder
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- 2 tablespoons walnut oil
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup or date syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- pinch sea salt
Instructions
- In a saucepan, add oils, and melt over medium low heat.
- Add cashew butter, and mix well.
- Add the rest of the ingredients, except vanilla and salt, and whisk until glossy.
- Remove from heat and add vanilla and salt.
Video
Nutrition
Other Vegan Chocolate Recipes:
- The BEST Fudgy Vegan Brownies, by Sunkissed Kitchen
- No Bake Raw Vegan Mint Brownies, by Sunkissed Kitchen
- Coconut Mint Cookie Truffles, by Sunkissed Kitchen
- Almond Joy Cookies, by Sunkissed Kitchen
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This looks really good! I might have to try it to sneak some protein in for my picky preschooler.
No kidding! I give my toddler lots of yogurt — in smoothies, but also as frozen yogurt (I make my own using just a touch of honey). He will barely eat meat, but he will eat any fruit I put in front of him!
You had me at hot chocolate and then again with healthy! I love this recipe and the simple ingredients. I can’t wait to try this!
Thanks Kristine– its super delicious 🙂
Agreed! And I really like the pom arils on top. I’m naking my daughter a peanut butter cake and wanted a hot fudge topping. This is it!!! Yum.
I hope it works out perfectly on your cake! I’d love to see that 🙂
I am all drooling over here.. The pouring shot just stole my heart.. These look so delicious wish I was your neighbour.. :D..
Btw loved the use of newspaper as the background. Will give it a try in my next shot..
Thanks Sushma! The newspaper was an experiment and I love how it turned out. Will be trying it again 🙂 And that pour shot! Perfection.
Wow.. You put healthy and hot chocolate together and I’m IN!!. This looks so good. I love that Pour!!
Thanks Veena! It’s super delicious and a great way to incorporate healthy fats! (great excuse to have a sundae!)
This looks amazing, I’m not that familiar with paleo, but it looks so delicious. I would love this.
Angela, I am certainly not Paleo, but the diet focuses on whole, unprocessed foods — meaning Paleo recipes have high nutrient values. Paleo recipes are great to incorporate into your diet whether you follow it or not!
I really like this recipe, and can’t wait to try it. I’ve made the more “magic shell” chocolate toppings before with coconut oil, like you are talking about. The use of walnut oil would be a great way to change the hardening part. I’ve had a hard time keeping walnut oil because it usually goes bad before I finish it. I think I’ll have to use grapeseed instead. Thanks!
I know! I used to have the same problem with my walnut oil– but I love it so much, so now I just remind myself to use it often for salad dressings. The best clean flavor. Thanks for letting me know you’re trying this!
Fudge is without a doubt one of my guilty pleasures. Yours looks really nice and flavorful I will have to prepare it soon =)
I hope you enjoy it Adriana!
There is something that is just not right about craving a chocolate sundae before breakfast. It’s your fault; you posted this beautiful fudge sauce and now I’ll be thinking of things I could use it with all day! : )
Haha, this fudge sauce has less sugar than most breakfast cereals, so I say go for it.
If you can make a hot fudge sundae healthy then hats off to you, as they say! This dish does look really yummy and love the cashew butter for added protein.
I’ll have to try this, my two kids are chocolate addicts! Your photos are lovely!
My 18 month old is a blossoming chocolate addict 🙂 I attribute this to the massive quantity of dark chocolate I consumed while breastfeeding him in the middle of the night as a newborn!
This chocolate sauce looks incredible! LOVE the simple and clean ingredients list and how creamy the sauce looks – not easy to do with a dairy free chocolate sauce! I have a feeling I will be drizzling this on everything.
It’s delicious, Laurel– we were drizzling it on everything and it’s time to make a new one for V-day now!
Wipped this up to have Hot Fudge on hand for a breakfast air fryer banana split . In my opinion what takes this hot Fudge over the top is the use of the date syrup although you can use pure maple syrup. It turned out rich and super decadent. This will be a new staple in my recipe repretore.
Yay! It is a fun recipe. Cashew butter is amazing 🙂