Name: Homemade Sugar-Free Nutella
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 20 min
Ingredients: 3/4 cup hazelnuts (toasted and husked**); 2 to 3 tbsp melted coconut oil (can sub avocado oil); 2 tbsp cocoa powder; 2 tbsp powdered Swerve Sweetener; 1/2 tsp vanilla extract; Pinch salt

Jump to Recipe Print Recipe

Simply the best low carb chocolate hazelnut spread ever. This keto Nutella recipe is the stuff of legends. At least in my own mind, but a legend nonetheless.

It is very possible that I am among the first people to have ever created a low carb, sugar-free Nutella copycat recipe. I can’t say for sure that I was THE first, but I have been blogging since 2010 and I am certainly earliest low carb food bloggers.

I first started blogging because I was trying to create lower sugar recipes after my experience with gestational diabetes. I wasn’t fully low carb or keto because I did not know at that time that my blood sugar issues were going to stick around. But I was experimenting with sweeteners and trying to keep my sugar consumption down.

And one of the first things I ever made was a sugar-free chocolate hazelnut spread. I’d spied some paleo bloggers making version with honey or maple syrup and I thought…well, I can do better than that!

How to use homemade Keto Nutella

I didn’t even think to blog about it right away, I was just psyched that I could come up with something that tasted even better than the sugary, high carb original. That must have been in March or April of 2010 because in May, I decided to try making something with the homemade Nutella and I turned it into low carb cookies (which I cutely called “Notella” Cookies).

From that point on, I was hooked on making my own keto chocolate hazelnut spread and using it in other recipes. Really, I was putting it into anything I could think of… Keto Nutella Cheesecake Ice Cream! Keto Hazelnut Cream Cake! Keto Nutella Truffles! Keto Nutella Swirl Bread! The list goes on. And on and on and on.

And you have to give the No Bake Nutella Cheesecakes a try. A must for chocolate hazelnut lovers.

The funny part is that I didn’t think to actually publish the Keto Nutella recipe by itself until 2015. I just kept making it part of each individual recipe.

Because sometimes I catch on slowly, and I finally realized that I need to make the Homemade Sugar-Free Nutella recipe a stand alone post so that I could refer to it and not have to type out the ingredients over and over and over again. Because let me be frank, I intend to keep making recipes with my homemade Nutella. Can’t stop, won’t stop.

Homemade Nutella is a family favorite!

I really do love this stuff, and so does my family. Love is probably an understatement. I make batches and batches of it and it somehow disappears faster than I can keep up with.

We put it on everything…my keto pancakes, my almond flour crepes, keto vanilla ice cream, keto muffins, you name it. And I am not above just spooning it into my mouth straight from the jar.

I buy the pre-roasted, unsalted hazelnuts from Trader Joe’s by the dozen and I make a jar or two every week but it never lasts. If I want to make a recipe with it, I have to hide it from my kids. It’s truly that delectable.

Tips for making sugar-free Nutella

A really good high powered blender or food processor is crucial here, to get your chocolate hazelnut spread as smooth as possible. But beyond that, the process is very simple.

I make this so often, I don’t even really measure anything anymore. I dump my hazelnuts into the blender and grind them up until the blender can’t get them any finer. Then I add a little oil and blend them until they liquify.

Only at that point do I add the cocoa powder and the sweetener. I’ve found that if you add those too early, it won’t grind up properly and become a smooth butter.

I have made one change to the recipe recently, and it’s a change for the better, in my opinion. Because my Blendtec blender is so powerful, it makes this sugar-free Nutella pretty goopy. It blends it so smoothly that it’s quite runny at room temperature. I found that by changing the oil to melted coconut oil, it firms up nicely when refrigerated and is a little less goopy at room temperature.

If you use a refined coconut oil, the coconut flavor won’t overpower the hazelnuts. But you can really still use any oil here. Hazelnut oil is great, and so is avocado. Even melted butter or ghee works.

So grab a bag of hazelnuts and let’s get grinding!