Making sugar-free chocolate chips is surprisingly easy and takes only simple 5 ingredients. Make these homemade chocolate chips for a great low carb and dairy-free option! Great in all your keto cookies, cakes, and sweet treats. Instructional video included.
If you think you might have seen these before, you have. I’ve done homemade sugar-free chocolate chips before, but this version is better and holds up to all of your low carb baking. They hold their shape perfectly and they have a deep rich semi-sweet chocolate flavor. And they honestly take only a few minutes to whip up.
While there are several good brands of sugar-free chocolate chips on the market, they can be prohibitively expensive. I love Lily’s chocolate chips but I find myself balking at $7.49 a bag. They also aren’t dairy-free and they contain a little soy, which many people don’t like. As a reader recently asked me about whether I had a decent homemade alternative, I decided I had to take matters into my own hands. I can honestly say that I have made vast strides in low carb cooking and baking in the past few years and very often my experiments lead me to new discoveries about how certain ingredients behave. I find myself storing up these little tidbits in my brain for future use. And when the time is right, a whole new idea takes shape in my brain and I can hardly wait to test it out.
How to Make Sugar-Free Chocolate Chips
The last time I made chocolate chips, I made them with butter. They were good, to be sure, but definitely a little on the soft side and they needed to be stored in the fridge and then added to the recipe just prior to baking. And although delicious, they didn’t quite live up to that true chocolate-chip flavour I had in my mind. Still, they were a good approximation and I was satisfied. But since that time, I have been playing around with other ingredients in some recipes, including cocoa butter. Unlike butter or coconut oil, cocoa butter stays solid at room temperature and it takes a fair bit of work to make it melt. For a bar of chocolate or a chocolate chip, this is an excellent quality indeed.
I also made sure to thoroughly sift both the powdered Swerve and cocoa powder before adding it to the melted chocolate mixture. This made a significant difference to the end result and the chips were much less grainy. To really sift out all the lumps, simply set a bowl below a fine mesh sieve. Measure your sweetener or cocoa powder into the bowl and use a spoon to stir it around and scrape it through the holes in the sieve.
And now that someone has come along and invented chocolate chip molds, we can even make them chocolate chip shaped! Wooohooo! Heretofore, I had always simply poured the chocolate mixture into chocolate bar molds and then chopped them, making them into low carb chocolate chunks rather than chips. I have also use these honeycomb silicon trivets, which work well and give them a very distinct shape. You can even simply pour the whole mixture into a parchment lined pan and chop them up from there. But obviously the chip mold is fun to have and they look just like the real thing.
Any way you make them, these sugar-free chocolate chips were a huge success. They blew my original attempts out of the water. First, they firmed up perfectly and I found that they didn’t need to be refrigerated after the initial chilling to stay firm. Secondly, they tasted like REAL chocolate. And why shouldn’t they? REAL chocolate is made with cocoa butter and is part of what gives it the deep, intense chocolate flavour. I had a hard time saving any of my first batch for baking with, because I just kept eating a little handful here and a little handful there as I passed through the kitchen.
And these homemade sugar free chocolate chips bake well too, I am pleased to say. I added them to some brownies, and I also baked them up in my Keto Double Chocolate Muffins. They held their shape nicely and didn’t totally liquify and run all over the pan, as I feared they might. They certainly held up about as well as any bar of chopped dark chocolate I’ve ever used.
The low carb chocolate chips melt perfectly into sugar free desserts like my keto chocolate chip cookies and Chocolate Chip Cloud Cookies, and I bet they would be delicious in Kalyn’s flourless low sugar peanut butter chocolate cookies too.
Tips for homemade chocolate chips
- Melt the cocoa butter and unsweetened chocolate in a double boiler. If they are over direct heat, they are more likely to seize.
- Use quality unsweetened chocolate such as Ghirardelli or Scharffenberger. Cheap bakers chocolate tends to seize more and will have a grittier texture.
- Sift your powdered sweetener and your cocoa powder to get out all the lumps.
- Use chocolate chip molds, silicone trivets, or any chocolate mold to shape your chocolate. Be sure to refrigerate until completely firm. After that, they won’t need to stay in the freezer or the fridge.
Sugar-Free Chocolate Chips
Ingredients
- 3 oz cocoa butter
- 2 oz unsweetened chocolate chopped
- ½ cup powdered Swerve Sweetener sifted
- ⅔ cup cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a heavy saucepan over low heat, melt the cocoa butter and chocolate together until smooth.
- Stir in the sifted powdered erythritol, then stir in the cocoa powder, until smooth. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract.
- Pour into chocolate molds or spread in an 8x8 pan lined with parchment paper.
- Refrigerate until set, then remove from the molds or chop into small chunks.
Video
susie t. gibbs says
Awesome recipe, Caroyn!
edna says
hi carolyn………for the unsweetened chocolate……i have a bag of organic traditions 100%
cocao paste chunksit says it is made from chocolate concentrate makes healthy dark chocolate bars and i also have a bag of organic traditions cocao butter as on the chocolate bag it said i need this butter to melt with the chocolate………..my question i see nothing that says food grade on the cocao butter bag so can i use these products in your recipe…………wow i am so excited to be able to have chocolate chip cookies again as i have not been able to since i became a diabetic……….make them for my husband and it takes all my willpower not to have one……….looking forward to your reply………love love love your website………….you are a diabetics angel
Carolyn says
I think you can use these, although I am unsure on how to use the cocoa paste. I just looked up that brand of cocoa butter and it’s fine for food.
edna says
thanks for your reply……since you are unsure of the cocoa paste i do have some bittersweet chocolate i can use but happy to hear that the cocoa butter is fine for food as i was worried about that term when i read it…….using ingredients i have never heard of in my 50 years of baking so need your help probably more than most………but as i stated thanks to you and your website i can cook and eat not only more healthy but definately to ensure to keep my diabetitis in check
Donn says
Carolyn: do you think allulose, or a mixture of allulose and xylitol might work here in order to prevent any sort of crystallization? I have both and I’m ready to make your chocolate chips. I also have swerve powdered but I have had problems with crystallization with that in the past.
Also, I am assuming that these are regular size chocolate chips. So, can you tell me how many it makes? You may have mentioned it in your comments but I didn’t see it anywhere. I may have just missed it.
I am ready at this very moment to rock and roll on these.
Carolyn says
So I can’t really use much allulose, as I have found it makes me very sick. But I think you should try… at the very least, you will get some sort of chocolate ganache out of it! And yes, regular sized chocolate chips.
Sharron Timmins says
Ooooooo, now I MUST try to make these – will just have to find a place I can order cocoa butter from with delivery to Canada!
Belenda says
Hi Carolyn – thanks for posting this. I have tried making these before and liked them….but, I store mine in the freezer and found the erythritol was gritty in the finished product. I always powder my erythritol, so, not sure what else I can do to make this a smooth finished chocolate? Should I just use liquid stevia glycerite??? Or a combo of the glycerite and something else? Wasn’t sure if you’ve had the same problem after storing it and played with the original recipe or not.
Carolyn says
Honestly, I think it’s the fact that you are trying to powder your own erythritol from granulated. No matter how good a machine, there is no way you can get it as fine as they can commercially. Confectioner’s swerve is so fine, it’s almost like dust and it poofs into the air when I try to mix it with things! 🙂
Belenda says
I did have the confectioner’s Swerve until the holiday baking was over. I think I just saw a BOGO email come thru today. I’ll have to grab some before the special ends and try this again with the confectioner’s Swerve. Thanks!!
Hadassah Geraci says
Thank you for sharing this recipe. I found that soaperschoice.com has food grade cocoa butter for $4.00 a pound for “food grade” cocoa butter. Much cheaper than the $15.00 a pound! : )
Kira says
Have you tried Lily’s Chocolate Dark Chocolate Chips? They are sweetened with stevia and erythritol. All of their chocolate products are wonderful — and they recently came out with milk chocolate).
Carolyn says
I have some in my cupboard right now but at 6.99 a bag, they aren’t very cost effective! 😉
Kira says
Ha! Can’t argue with you there. It’s that trade off for time vs money. It does make it self-regulating on making the cookies too often.
Valerie says
As a type 1 diabetic, I’m extremely careful with my carbs. I made this recipe exactly as written. I didn’t have powdered Erythritol so I put my granulated in the food processor and ran it until it was quite powdered.
Poured it into an 8×8 pan lined with parchment. It was delicious (even though I’d prefer milk chocolate) and has had zero impact on my blood sugar, which is thrilling. Thank you!
Carolyn says
Yay, Valerie, that makes me so happy. I wish I could figure out a way to make milk chocolate. I am a huge dark chocolate fan but I know not everyone else is!
charlotte says
Did you use a silicone mold? If so, do you have a link to buy it, I want one of those 🙂
I can’t wait to try and make this! 🙂
Carolyn says
No, I just used a plastic chocolate bar mold from Michael’s. I think it cost $1.99?
Tanya says
How do you store this? Fridge or room temp?
Carolyn says
You can store them at room temp for a few days, but if they will be around longer than that, store them in the freezer.
Karen at Little Red House Designs says
Reading this as part of your 2014 Best Recipes. Thank YOU!!!! I am so happy I want to cry. I live with a cane sugar food sensitivity and recently learned that the sugar in the 86% Dark Chocolate I was eating was causing havoc in my system (major hair loss) 🙁 Been chocolate free now since Halloween. I am ordering my Cocoa Butter today! Cannot WAIT to try!!
Carolyn says
Oh no, what a terrible sensitivity! Cane sugar is in practically everything! Hope the Swerve and stevia work for you. This is like really good, really dark chocolate. Yum!
Shannon says
Just made these for my holiday baking. They worked beautifully! The chunks held up in my cookies. So glad I found your site. My only substitution was powdered Whey Low.
Carolyn says
So glad to hear it!
Dea says
Is there anything I can use in place of powdered erythritol? It seems to have a lot of carbs :/. I’m not sure I like that.Is it possible to use a no-carb liquid sweetener? or Will that mess with chocolate chips?
Carolyn says
Erythritol technically contains carbs, but it has zero effect on mot people’s blood sugar so it counts as zero net carbs. I have tested this on myself (pre-diabetic) over and over. I am a believer. So sure, you can try whatever sweetener you like but I don’t think it will taste as good or have the right consistency.
Lin says
Just made your recipe into chocolate bars and added chopped peanuts. Delicious! This is the best low-carb chocolate Recipe I have made. The recipe made 8 chocolate bars, and with the addition of 2 ounces of peanuts, each bar was 116 calories, 9carbs, and 5 grams fiber. Therefore, net carb count was 4 per bar. A great evening treat!
Carolyn says
Good stuff! Glad to hear they worked out for you.
Brooke says
Have you ever made white chocolate? I am new at all this so I don’t even know how one would even attempt to make that! I can NEVER find sugar free white chocolates for baking and I don’t like milk/dark chocolate (shocking, I know!). Do you have any suggestions on where to get sugar free white chocolate? Thanks!
Carolyn says
I have made something that is a decent replacement for white chocolate. I am working on perfecting it, but check out what I did in this recipe: https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/2012/07/white-chocolate-macadamia-nut-scones-low-carb-and-gluten-free.html
Shirley Ho says
Can I use these chocolate chips in the cookies recipe? I want to make low carb chunky chocolate chip cookies.
Carolyn says
You sure can! They will melt a little more than typical chocolate chunks, but they don’t run all over the place and you get some nice chunks of chocolate.
Eva says
I keep using xylitol because we tolerate it well and it’s cheaper. Even though it does raise blood sugar levels, it is minimal so I figure it’s an ok compromise. I have melted down baking chocolate and sweetened it with xylitol but haven’t used it to bake because one recipe I read pointed out that it will melt and run all over the place but still have good flavor (in something like chocolate chip cookies). My kids don’t need any help making chocolate messy! Recently, I’ve been making coconut oil candies that I sweeten with a simple syrup made with xylitol. Since it’s made with cocoa powder it doesn’t seize. We can leave it out of the fridge for 10-15 mins before we need to chill it again. I’ve also mixed in shredded coconut and just poured it in a dish and cut it into squares or eaten it with a spoon at room temperature. That’s great for satisfying the need for a sweet treat but I love the idea of cocoa butter to firm up the chocolate so you can bake with it and eat it at room temperature. I think those benefits might make it easy to live with a little crunch from the sweetener. Going to order some cocoa butter now!
Jennifer says
I live in Beijing and absolutely love your site and recommend it to anyone who will listen! Living gf and low-carb in Beijing is sooo much easier with you in this world!! Now…. apologies in advance for what made be a ‘stupid’ question!
I have brought a lot of my gf baking goods over from the States, but I didn’t bring powdered erythritol with me and can’t find it here! I have granulated stevia and can get granulated erythritol online here, but having not made chocolate before I am not sure if the sweetner must be powdered?
Carolyn says
Powdered would be best but if you can’t get it, you can used the granulated. Your end result will be grittier. Can you grind the granulated in a coffee grinder or something? It won’t be ideal but it would help some.
Erin says
Quick question… I don’t have any unsweetened chocolate in the house (and I’m having issues finding good stuff here in the UK)
Can I just sub the classic 3 TBS cocoa powder + 1 TBS oil per ounce of Unsweetened chocolate needed? Or will that mess with the consistency?
Carolyn says
I don’t know for sure but I think you should try it. And for better flavour, go with coconut oil if you have any. If the end result is too soft, keep it in the freezer or fridge, and it will still be delicious!
Dawn says
Way to persevere Carolyn! 🙂 This is super impressive – I’ve never seen someone make their own low carb chocolate chips but it makes complete sense! 🙂 Nice job! Pinning this for later 😉 Thank you!
Laura says
Sounds good! You can get sunflower lecithin at Whole Foods sometimes. I think I got mine on Natural Zing. A lot of the raw,organic vegan websites sell it.