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
SUSAN says
I couldn’t find unsweetened chocolate in Australia so I added more cocoa butter and cocoa powder (1 oz of each). Delicious! I don’t mind the graininess at all and added a bit of dedicated coconut to mask it! Even my husband who hates dark chocolate likes this one and 20g (85 cals) is enough to satisfy my sweet tooth after dinner. Can’t wait to try making different flavours by adding different things to it.
Carolyn says
Great adaptation!
Jennifer Blake says
Wow! Not sure I would’ve ever thought to make my own chocolate chips but these sound awesome!
Jennifer Farley says
This is too cool! Love it!
Jana says
One more question- with nut allergies I think Bakers and Hershey’s are my only options for the unsweetened chocolate. Would Hershey’s be a good enough option? Thanks!
Carolyn says
Are you sure others are not nut-free? Ghirardelli? Scharffenberger? They are better quality.
Jana says
Unfortunately Ghirardelli has a facility with potential for cross contamination with nuts. (Chocolate is one of the trickiest foods for a nut allergy! So many cross contamination labels!) Guittard isn’t safe either. Thanks for the Scharffenberger recommendation- I emailed them to see. I’m hoping that since they’re a part of the Hershey company, that no warning label will mean good news. Hershey’s is fabulous about putting warnings on labels. (The only size Hershey bar that is safe is the regular size not jumbo or mini! But that’s not Keto and thus I’m learning to make chocolate from you!!) Thanks Carolyn! I’ll report back in!
Carolyn says
Ah, okay good to know! Trying to think of others.
Jana says
I can’t wait to try these! I’m stuck, though, not knowing how many cocoa butter chunks (Wild Foods brand-my bag doesn’t say) would equal 3 ounces. Can someone give me a guess? Thanks!!
Carolyn says
12 discs = 1 ounce.
Jana says
Thank you!!
Sheila M Bassett says
YUMMY! These came out perfect. The only changes I made was to reduce the cocoa powder by 2 tablespoons and added 2 tablespoons of heavy cream POWDER(Anthony’s)in it’s place. I also used half powdered swerve and half powdered bocha sweet. They are so good!! They taste more like milk chocolate to me. I bought the chocolate chip molds and the candy bar mold and the recipe was enough to make around 300 chips and 1 full size bar. Thank you!
Lisa in NJ says
My chocolate will not chop in to pieces, it’s chalky almost like the cocoa powder did not mix in well. When I added the vanilla it got gritty, does that mean it seized ? Should i have added more cocoa butter to thin it back out? It still tastes great.
Carolyn says
Hmmmm. Okay, what brand of cocoa powder are you using? And what sweetener? I will try my best to identify the problem.
Lisa in NJ says
I used Swerve powered sugar and Hershey’s dark chocolate cocoa
LuAnne says
I’m on keto and found your recipe while on my search for homemade chocolate chips (tired of paying the high price for Lily’s). I haven’t tried it yet but I saw another recipe that suggested using silicone pot holders for molds for chocolate chips. Seems like an ingenious idea! Here’s a link to the pot holders. https://www.amazon.com/Silicone-Ankway-Resistant-Non-slip-Insulation/dp/B01G3HJROS/ref=pd_rhf_schuc_p_img_12?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=NXHADMFFV041YPNKSHFY
Carolyn says
Yes, I have done it and it works well. However you need several of them to accommodate all the chocolate in this recipe.
Kim says
These are so good! I found your site a couple of years ago and you have the best recipes. I put my son, who has Downs syndrome, on a low carb diet because of his seizures and it has helped, he is a very fussy eater but he likes a lot of your recipes. Thanks so much for sharing!
Carolyn says
I am so very glad to hear that they help and that your son’s seizures are under better control!
Sharon says
Hi there…
Happy to find this online…
It’s hard to find sugar free chocolate in indonsia
Very expensive…
Just one question, can I sub the unsweeten chocolate/cocoa with cacao mass?
Will it change the texture? Thanks in advance
Carolyn says
I don’t know what cocoa mass is.
Lisa says
Or just use cacao nibs. Net carbs 2 per 2 Tbls. Cacao nibs are roasted, chopped cocoa beans.
MaryAnn G. says
Tried this with unsweetened carob chips. Boy was that a mistake! I vow to never break the infallible keto cooking rule-don’t skimp on the chocolate.
Kristen says
Thank you for the recipe! I just made and I’m sure it’s user error but mine seized up terribly right after I added cocoa. Too hot? Should I use a double boiler or do something to manage the temp?
Carolyn says
It’s so hard to say. Unsweetened chocolate is so prone to seizing but a double boiler would certainly help.
K says
Can this recipe for chips be used in your Death By Chocolate Cheesecake recipe instead of the Lily’s brand of dark chocolate? Does the chip recipe have a comparable sweetness to the Lily brand?
Thank you for all you do.
Carolyn says
I think it could. My recipe is darker, less sweet but I think it would be fine.
K says
Is there a way to make the sweetness of chip recipe comparable to the Lily dark chocolate? I’m very new to the low carb world and the use of sugar alternatives. I’m trying to help out a great friend whose rescently been diagnosed as a pre-diabetic. Cheesecake and chocolate chip cookies are some of her favorites. That being said she not a huge dark, dark chocolate fan. Thank you very much for all the help and creativity.
Carolyn says
You can’t add more bulk sweetener or it will be too thick. Try adding stevia liquid or liquid sucralose if you are okay with using it.
K says
Thank you for your quick reply. I’ll give it a try. I really appreciate all that you do for this community.
Jeanne says
You should tell her to check out ChocoPerfection.com. They sell milk chocolate as well as dark chocolate. The sweeten their product with chicory root.
Lynn price says
What a fabulous recipe! I used Just Like Sugar, since sugar alcohols force me to have a more intimate relationship with my bathroom. The chocolate is fabulous! It’s not terribly grainy, and odd as it sounds, it has a really nice mouth feel. Especially with a glass of red wine. It’s wonderful to have chocolate in my life again. Thank you!
Kynda Canada says
just made these today and they turned out beautifully. I melted the cocoa butter and chocolate in a glass jar in a water bath and had no trouble blending it into the erythritol/cocoa powder mixture. I divided them into a 24 square mold to use either for chips or for a bite of chocolate with coffee. Will definitely make these again. thank you!
Kim Conover says
I spent quite a while reading comments checking to see if my question was previously answered- I apologize- there were just too many! Ha! I wouldn’t get anything else done today if I read through them all! I know it’s not the same exact thing, but can I substitute coconut butter for cocoa butter? I’ve been looking for low carb coconut butter recipes and this recipe came up in the search. It took me a minute before I realized it was actually a cocoa butter recipe. Thank you.
Carolyn says
They will be a lot softer and meltier upon baking, just FYI.
Marica says
Have you used the coco butter at Amazon for a substitute for the blocks of coco butter? With wat result?
Thanks for your recipes!
Carolyn says
This one works very well and comes in smaller chunks. http://amzn.to/2fvaFSa
Grace says
Lily’s: made with Stevia, low calorie and excellent.
http://lilyssweets.com/baking-chips/
Katy says
I whizz up about a cup of erythritol (divided into 2/3 mini batches) in my coffee bean blender every few weeks to turn it into a fine powder. I use this to add to my home made choc pudding/chocolate. Works a treat. I tried it without grinding it the first time and I didn’t like the grittiness….