Chocolate Bars Recipe
This chocolate bars recipe is the perfect sweet treat to stash in your freezer for sweet tooth emergencies!
Chocolate doesn’t have to be unhealthy. While you still want to enjoy it in moderation (hello calories!), chocolate is actually perfectly healthy stuff!
What makes it unhealthy? Everything that gets added to it. So instead of buying chocolate bars at the store that are totally unhealthy and bad for you, here’s how to make them easily at home with far healthier ingredients!
And yes, these make great gifts for special occasions!
About The Ingredients
Unsweetened chocolate – Choose your chocolate carefully. The higher the cocoa content the healthier it will be! (Dark chocolate anyone?)
Coconut oil – Use virgin oil that is hard at room temperature. This is a critical ingredient for your bars getting hard enough in the fridge or freezer to actually become a bar instead of liquid chocolate.
Granular sweetener – I used xylitol because it’s easier on my blood sugar. But any granular sweetener will work here. Try Sucanat, coconut sugar, or even monk fruit!
Salt – I used pink Himalayan salt, but any fine salt will do the trick here.
Chocolate Bar Flavorings
If you want to add flavoring to your chocolate bars, here are some suggestions. Use one or all!
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 ½ tsp. ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp. cayenne pepper
- ¼ cup finely chopped nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts, or macadamia nuts will work well here!)
How To Make This Chocolate Bars Recipe
In a small slow cooker (you can use a double boiler too), melt your chocolate on low, stirring once or twice as it melts.
When melted, stir in the coconut oil and melt fully.
Stir in the remaining ingredients and mix well.
Pour the chocolate into chocolate bar molds and set in the fridge. Once they are a little solid, you can move them to the freezer if you need them to harden faster.
Remove from mold and keep in the fridge or freezer at all times.
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Healthy Chocolate Recipes
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Chocolate Bars Recipe
Equipment
- Chocolate bar molds OR a small cookie sheet with sides
Ingredients
- 8 oz. unsweetened chocolate
- ½ cup coconut oil
- 1¼ cup granular sweetener
- ¼ tsp. sea salt
Instructions
- In a small slow cooker (you can use a double boiler too), melt your chocolate on low, stirring once or twice as it melts.
- When melted, stir in the coconut oil and melt fully.
- Stir in the remaining ingredients and mix well.
- Pour the chocolate into chocolate bar molds and set in the fridge. Once they are a little solid, you can move them to the freezer if you need them to harden faster.
- Remove from mold and keep in the fridge or freezer at all times.
Notes
Nutrition
This recipe from the Gracious Pantry® archives, originally posted 8/5/12.
I hope you enjoy them!
This is SO delicious. Thank you so much! I’m a serious chocolate lover and recent ‘clean-eater’. This makes my occasional indulgence guilt free 🙂
Awesome!
That’s tough. You need an oil that has a pleasant flavor and also solidifies when cold. I can’t think of anything off hand, but I’ll keep thinking…
Cacao butter (food grade) will work instead of coconut oil. It’s a little harder when at room temp, but melts quickly in the double boiler. I found some at Natural Grocer, but I bet you can get some on Amazon.
Erin – Great idea! Thanks!
Wonderful!
Thanks!
I thought I couldn’t love you any more after the Lemon Chicken Carbonara, but you’ve outdone yourself with this one!! Unfortunately, I can not stop eating them!!! But I don’t care!
Haha!!! Oh dear. Well I’m glad you like them!
Coconut oil is very healthy for you. I cook with it often. I also use olive oil, walnut oil, sesame oil and safflower oil. But for this particular recipe, coconut oil works best because it hardens when cool. Otherwise, you’d just have chocolate syrup.
That’s what I love about these bars. A little goes a long way!
Haha! Enjoy!
These particular bars are pretty dependent on the coconut oil. But you can always order it from amazon.com. You’d probably get a pretty good deal on it that way.
I drove into the city to buy some. I see why we need it! I didn’t realize that it’s a solid a room temperature! I made it last night – it’s very good. Its very soft though. I think I’ll add some more cocoa for next time, or cut back on the oil a bit. Thanks for the recipe! I’ll be coming back to this one!
These are terrific!
Made these last night and tried one today – SOOO good! Usually I don’t comment on recipes and such, but I enjoyed these more then regular old chocolate!
Awesome! Glad you’re enjoying them!
I just made these and they haven’t hardened but OMG they are FANTASTIC! I didnt have chili powder and forgot the salt but they are still SO good. They would be great to dip fruit in before chilling.
Yes, fruit is great to dip in this while it’s warm!
can u tell me why after stirring for a bit my ingredients separated or thinned out? I though maybe temp so I put them in the fridge they froze but with a whitish film on top.
Not sure what you mean by separated. Did the oil not combine with the chocolate somehow? The white film on top would have been the oil or fat rising to the top. So something definitely did not combine well. What types of cocoa powder and oil did you use?
Louann pure coconut oil and herseys unsweetened coco powder…. I heated the oil in the microwave for 10 sec to make it softer for stirring… Could that be it? everything combined fine at 1st but I kept stirring for about 5min and then all of a sudden the mix thinned out … Kinda like gum after u chew it too long. So I rushed it to the freezer…. It doesn’t taste bad…doesn’t look like your pic either has an interesting pattern where the oil separated… Like cream cheese swirl brownies!
I got REALLY excited about this as it was listed under vegan recipes. It’s not vegan though! Honey is unfortunately an animal byproduct 🙁 Could you recommend a different sweetener perhaps?
Sorry about that! Will fix immediately. Maple syrup or brown rice syrup should work as well. 🙂
holy smokes these are awesome!! I used 100% cacao dark chocolate cocoa powder and had to make a few changes (be/c I didn’t have the ingredients) — I topped off the honey with some blue agave nectar, used vanilla almond milk instead of vanilla since I was out. These are just fabulous!! Thanks for the recipe!!
Crystal – Glad you enjoyed them! 🙂
oh and to the person wanting a vegan sweetener..blue agave nectar is vegan and a low glycemic index food!
Crystal – But sadly, agave is not clean.
I am so grateful for this recipe- this is some of the best chocolate I’ve ever had! I’ve played around with the recipe and omitted the chili powder, cayenne, and cinnamon and replaced it with peanut butter…very tasty!!
Tara – Oh yum! I might have to try that! 😀
Oh…my! I put these together about 5 hours ago. I just couldn’t wait & cut a piece out. They were crunchy on top & fudgy on the bottom…YUM! Mine came out very coconut-y, which I really like. My only ‘complaint’, of sorts, is not spicy enough…will be doubling the cayenne next time. 😉 Thanks!
Amy – Glad you enjoyed them!