Homemade Vegan Nutella
This chestnutella is a delicious take on a homemade vegan Nutella recipe, perfect to treat yourself with or make as a festive, edible gift.
Servings: 12
Equipment
- Food processor
Ingredients
- 180 g vacuum-packed roasted chestnuts
- 200 g dark chocolate
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil Optional but recomended for texture
- 100 ml almond milk I used Califia Farms cold brew espresso variety for extra flavour
- ½ teaspoon mixed spice Optional to taste
- pinch salt Optional to taste
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup Optional to taste
- warm water Optional - depending on the power of your blender
Instructions
- Spread 180 g vacuum-packed roasted chestnuts out on a baking tray and warm in the centre of the oven at 180℃/350℉/Gas 4 for 10 minutes.
- Break 200 g dark chocolate into chunks and place in a heat-safe bowl. You can heat this in the microwave or over a pan of hot water until just melted.
- Adding 1 tsp coconut oil to the chocolate before melting helps to keep it smooth and glossy. You can skip this step if preferred.
- Melt the chocolate for 1 minute in the microwave. Stop to check after the first minute and continue in 30-second increments. Mine took 2 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, remove the chestnuts from the oven and blitz in a food processor whilst still warm.
- From this point on, you’ll need to use your judgment as to how long to process the chestnuts. In my cheap and cheerful blender, it took almost 25 minutes. You’re looking for a smooth and creamy nut butter consistency. You’ll need to frequently stop and scrape down the sides to fully incorporate all the bits of nut into smooth butter. See the notes below for how to speed this up.
- Once the chestnuts are blended into butter drizzle in the melted chocolate.
- Heat 100 ml almond milk for 1 minute in the microwave and add to the food processor.
- Process for a minute or so until all the chocolate has been blended into the nut butter.
- Taste and adjust. Depending on the bitterness of your chocolate you can add 1 Tbsp maple syrup for extra sweetness, pinch salt to balance or ½ tsp mixed spice for a subtle, Christmas flavour.
- Spoon the chestnutella into a sterilised glass jar. See the detailed recipe FAQ in the blog post regarding storage.
Notes
Cook's Tips: If you’re not vegan or low FODMAP, then feel free to use whichever chocolate you prefer. Just be aware that dark chocolate will give a deeper chocolate flavour and a darker colour, whilst milk or white chocolate will be sweeter and look paler.
If you’re running out of time and patience with blending the chestnuts into butter, try adding the warmed plant milk to the partially blitzed chestnuts after a few minutes and see if that helps to speed everything up.
Food Safety: Unlike commercial Nutella, this is not a shelf-stable, preservation recipe suitable for long-term storage. Store it in the coldest part of the fridge (towards the back) for a maximum of 2 weeks. Alternatively, freeze in 1 tablespoon portions in ice cube trays for up to 1 month. See the full blog post for storage tips if you plan on gifting this spread.
FODMAP Notes: See the full blog post for detailed FODMAP ingredient notes. FODMAP values, portions and categories can and do change over time.
I use standard UK metric measurements in all of my recipes:
- 1 cup = 250 ml
- 1 tablespoon = 15 ml
- 1 teaspoon = 5 ml
