Low Carb Chocolate Hazelnut Spread Recipe

If you love Nutella, try making your own with this low carb chocolate hazelnut spread recipe. It’s a sugar free homemade chocolate hazelnut butter that only needs a handful of ingredients and is done in minutes. Use it as a healthy keto snack or in smoothies or chocolates. Only 1.1g net carbs per tablespoon.

You might also love this low carb maple bacon almond butter!

I can still remember the first time I had Nutella. It was when I went on a business trip with my husband overseas and they served this delicious spread with breakfast croissants. I was in heaven! And while I love it, it has more sugar than I can handle these days.

So today I created my own homemade version of store bought Nutella which is this low carb chocolate hazelnut spread recipe. It was so delicious and only took a few minutes to make. Best of all it has a carb count of 1.1 grams net carbs per tablespoon as well as 2.2 grams of protein! And it only requires a few minutes and is dairy free as well.

Sometimes I just eat a tablespoon of my homemade Nutella when I want something sweet. However I have also added it protein shakes, usesd it as a filling for homemade chocolates and even added some to my keto Ninja Creami ice cream recipes. It’s perfect for those on low carb diets.

Why make your own nut butter or spread?

I love peanut butter but over time I have found that different nut butters taste just as good if not better than peanut butter. Some grocery stores carry all kinds of nut butter like almond or cashew butter. However store bought nut butters can be both expensive and higher in carbs than if you just make it yourself. Plus it make a great low carb snack and it has a good bit of protein too.

How to make a basic nut butter.

 Nut butter is just a grinding of a nut to make a paste or spread. It’s super easy to make plus you can control what goes in it. You can use sweeteners if you are trying to watch your carbs and you can also add different flavors to them.

You can make nut butter with either roasted or raw nuts. I like them roasted because it adds a bit more flavor. Put them in a food processor and process until it is smooth and creamy. You can add sweetness, flavor extracts, cocoa powder, spice, etc to create different flavors. 

You can also add coconut oil or even avocado if you want to make your butters smoother but note that this adds a bit of coconut flavor that you may or may not want.

Recipe ingredients I used and substitutions.

You only 5 simple ingredients to make this chocolate hazelnut spread and they are roasted hazelnuts (no skins), unsweetened cocoa powder, sweetener, vanilla extract and liquid stevia.

The first batch I made, I used raw hazelnuts with the skins and roasted them in the oven. You can check out this homemade hazelnut butter post if you want to do that. However this time I found a bag of already roasted hazelnuts and no skins and no oven. That made it much easier.

The other ingredients are Divine cocoa which I love because it has so much flavor and it’s low in carbs. You can use regular unsweetened cocoa powder if you can’t find that one.

I also used vanilla extract, SweetLeaf vanilla liquid stevia drops and Swerve powdered sweetener. You can use any brand of powdered sweetener you want. Granulated sugar sweetener may add a bit of gritty texture to the spread so use powdered if you can. And you can use whatever brand of liquid stevia you want. 

I personally like this sweetness combination as the stevia is super sweet on it’s own and the erythritol can have a cooling aftertaste. However if you don’t have liquid stevia drops you can add a bit more granular sweetener until you get your desired level of sweetness.

If you don’t care about carbs or sugar, some natural substitutes would be maple syrup, honey or even coconut sugar as well as white sugar.

How to make low carb chocolate hazelnut spread.

As I mentioned this only takes 5 minutes to make.

Step 1: Add the roasted hazelnuts to the bowl of a food processor. Note if you are using raw hazelnuts see this post to roast them in the oven to remove the skins.

Process of blend for about 4 minutes until the nuts breakdown and form a butter. It should like the pic below. Scrape down the sides every once in a while though.

Step 2: When it looks like the above picture, add in the vanilla, cocoa powder, stevia and Swerve sweetener to the food processor bowl. Process for a minute more until it’s well combined. Again scrape the bowl in the process to get everything mix together.

While the texture looks a bit grainy here, once it sits for a while it will look much more smooth. Store bought Nutella has a creamy consistency because it uses palm oil which I did not use because I wanted to keep it simple.

Step 3: Spoon the sugar free Nutella spread into a glass jar or an airtight container and refrigerate. This makes approximately 1 ½ cups which is about 24 tablespoon servings. This should likes for a few weeks. Mine is usually gone in one week. Please scroll down to view the printable recipe card.

Ways to use this sugar free spread.

Just about anything you can make with the store bought version you can make with this low carb chocolate hazelnut spread.

• If you don’t care about carbs, this would be great on toast, croissants and other breakfast breads. You can also add it to yogurt or ice cream, put it in sauces, hot chocolate, keto desserts, cookies and even put it into a bowl of oatmeal.
• I like it spread on apple slices. I use Granny Smith because they are lower in carbs and I only eat about half of an apple. And even though rice cakes aren’t low carb, sometimes I spread a layer on one of those too.
• You can also make a chocolate hazelnut protein shake. Add a tablespoon or two of this healthy hazelnut spread to a protein shake to give it more flavor and it will keep you fuller because of the nuts.
• This sugar free Nutella is also great as a filling in keto candy. Just melt ¼ cup cocoa butter, 2 oz bakers unsweetened chocolate and ¼ cup Swerve sweetener in a pan. When everything melts, pour into an ice cube mold but just a little bit. Set it in the freezer for 5 minutes then take it out and put a dollop of the hazelnut spread. Freeze again for 5 minutes then take it out and pour the rest of the chocolate on top. Freeze for an hour or until the harden. 

Well I hope you give the healthy, sugar free chocolate hazelnut spread a try next time you have a craving for Nutella. Remember all you need is a few ingredients and about 5 minutes. Enjoy!

The nutrition info for 1 tablespoon of this sugar free hazelnut spread is: 97 cals / 9.5g fat / 2.9g carbs / 1.8g fiber / 2.2g protein = 1.1g net carbs