Need a low-carb sugar free chocolate syrup recipe to use for making keto chocolate milk and ice cream sundaes? There's no need to buy one. It’s super easy to make your own!
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Lately, I’ve been craving a lot of chocolate. In particular, a chocolaty alternative to almond milk. Then it dawned on me that I just need to make a sugar-free chocolate sauce to add to a cold glass of milk.
When I first went low-carb, I used to buy sugar free chocolate syrup. The brand I used was Walden Farms zero carb chocolate syrup. These days, there are better sugarless options like Lakanto sugar-free chocolate syrup. and Hershey's sugar free syrup.
Eventually, I stopped buying commercially prepared products that contain artificial sweeteners. Unfortunately, Walden Farms uses sucralose as the added sweetener in their syrup which isn't natural like monk fruit extract.
Hershey's sugar free syrup also adds sucralose as well as artificial flavor and some other questionable ingredients like sodium acid sulfate, potassium sorbate, acesulfame potassium, zinc sulfate, and sodium benzoate. That's why I came up with this sugar-free recipe!
📋 Ingredients
You only need a few ingredients to get the iconic flavor of Hershey without those artificial ingredients. Here's what you need to make your own homemade chocolate syrup.
Cocoa powder
Regular unsweetened cocoa powder is what I use to provide a natural flavor. If you need a more rich and genuine chocolate flavor, you can melt in a little low-carb dark chocolate or stevia sweetened chocolate.
Sweetener
Although you only need one keto-friendly sweetener, I often use concentrated vanilla stevia liquid and mix it with a powdered erythritol or allulose sweetener. What you use to sweeten the syrup is really up to your own personal taste and preference. If you don't use a vanilla liquid sweetener, you should add in a half teaspoon or so of vanilla extract.
Salt
Just a pinch of salt goes a long way in enhancing the chocolate flavor so don't leave it out!
Note: The full list of ingredients and all the exact amounts used to make this homemade sugar free syrup are available in the printable recipe card at the bottom.
💭 Quick tips
- Add a thickener. You can thicken up the syrup by adding in a little xanthan gum or guar gum. However, cooking the mixture with some melted chocolate will thicken it without having to add any low-carb thickener.
- Check the carb count on the cocoa. Some unsweetened cocoa powders have less carbs than others. Be sure to check the labels before buying to make sure you choose one with the lowest carb count.
- Use a whisk. I find that a whisk helps blend the cocoa powder into the liquid best. I also like to use a mix of sweeteners.
🔪 Instructions
You should be able to whip this chocolate syrup up within 10 or 15 minutes. Once you gather all your ingredients it’s just dumping it into a saucepan, whisking it up, and cooking it up a bit.
Combine ingredients
Whisk together all of the ingredients in a small pot until they are well combined.
Cook
Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat. Then reduce the heat and simmer on low for about five to ten minutes.
Once the mixture has thickened, remove it from the heat and stir in the vanilla liquid sweetener or a little vanilla extract.
🍽️ Serving Suggestions
The delicious taste of chocolate syrup can be used in so many ways! Add a chocolate drizzle to your midday coffee for a little sweetness and classic mocha flavor.
It blends well with unsweetened almond milk or coconut milk for a keto chocolate milk or hot cocoa. It's also a great way to add a little chocolate flavor to all your favorite drinks.
Use it as a tasty topping for low carb ice cream to make a chocolate sundae. I had some low-carb strawberry ice cream in the freezer that I made several weeks ago and it went perfect over that too.
It's great for adding extra goodness to keto treats. Just pour a chocolate drizzle of the syrup over the top of your favorite desserts.
I also use this sugar free chocolate sauce in my no bake banana split cake cheesecake.
🙋 FAQs
Before getting to the full recipe and instructions, I wanted to answer a few of the questions I often get asked about the recipe.
Not all sugarless syrups are keto-friendly. Stay away from ones with sugar alcohols and hard to pronounce ingredients. Since Hershey's syrup uses preservatives and artificial ingredients, it's not the best choice for a keto diet.
My homemade syrup has just one gram of net carb for a one tablespoon serving. It's almost impossible to to find a true chocolate syrup without carbs because cocoa and chocolate are not carb-free.
If you don't want to make your own syrup, my top choice is Lakanto chocolate syrup because it has zero net carbs and is made with quality ingredients like erythritol and monk fruit extract.
Yes! Pure stevia has zero carbs and no calories! You can read more about it in my post about this common question: Is stevia keto friendly?
📚 Related recipes
If you liked this recipe, you should try these other sugar-free syrups as well! They are all delicious and perfectly sweet, all without the carbs.
- Keto Maple Syrup has that classic maple flavor making this a perfect substitute for your pancake breakfast!
- Sugar-Free Cinnamon Dolce Syrup is a flavorful addition to seasonal drinks, coffee, or drizzling over pancakes and waffles.
- Low Carb Blueberry Syrup is a bright and fruity syrup. It would be delicious on top of pancakes or waffles!
- Sugar-Free Caramel Sauce Recipe is sweet and rich, all without the carbs and added sugar.
- Easy Sugar-Free Hot Fudge Sauce has the classic chocolate flavor and is a rich and sweet low-carb topping for ice cream.
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📖 Recipe
Sugar Free Chocolate Syrup Recipe
Video
Ingredients
- 1 cup water
- ½ cup cocoa powder
- ⅓ cup allulose or powdered erthritol
- ⅛ teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla stevia drops see note
Instructions
- Combine water, cocoa powder, sweetener, and salt in medium pot.
- Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce heat.
- Simmer on low for 5-10 minutes. Mixture should thicken up a bit. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla stevia.
Notes
Low Carb Sweeteners | Keto Sweetener Conversion Chart
Nutrition
Additional Info
Note on Nutritional Information
Nutritional information for the recipe is provided as a courtesy and is approximate only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on this site. Erythritol carbs are not included in carb counts as it has been shown not to impact blood sugar. Net carbs are the total carbs minus fiber.
Unauthorized use of this material without written permission from Lisa MarcAurele is strictly prohibited unless for personal offline purposes.
Single photos may be used, provided that full credit is given to LowCarbYum.com along with a link back to the original content.
First published on October 13, 2015. Updated on December 26, 2021, with new photos and additional recipe information.
Sloane
Seriously, this is one of the better recipes for choco syrup. It worked amazingly.
Cristien Camp
Fantastic! Sugar free chocolate syrup is so hard to find in the store. This recipe is delicious and spot on! Thank you!
Mike
I went straight to the recipe and used your PRINT icon to print the recipe. At the bottom of that page it says not to copy anything there without permission. I must have missed something somewhere. MK
Lisa MarcAurele
When it says not to copy, it means not to copy and paste then publish again online or in a publication without permission. Printing the recipe for personal use is allowed without permission.
David P
This is really yummy chocolate syrup. It has no coconut oil fat as some others do. I added just a little more erthritol sweetener for my taste. Glad I found this one.
Tawn
Can you add heavy whipping cream to this to make it more like a milk chocolate sauce?
Lisa MarcAurele
You could try adding in a little bit.
Candace
I made the recipe following instructions exactly the first time and the taste was so bitter I threw out the whole batch.. I knew it was the addition of the vanilla stevia drops.. in my experience stevia leaves a bad aftertaste when used with chocolate. I made another batch leaving out the stevia, upping the erythritol to 1 cup, and using 1/4 t vanilla extract.. it came out to exactly what I was looking for! I use this in my iced coffee and it's what I've been missing on keto. Thank you.
Cristina
Did the erythritol crystallize after some time? I was looking at other recipes and they said erythritol crystallizes but I'm hoping it will still work because I only have erythritol and vanilla extract on hand. If it did, what did you do to fix it?
Lisa MarcAurele
The erythritol tends to crystalize in this recipe. I find using non-erythritol sweeteners give the best results. Otherwise, you have to really limit how much erythritol you use.
Cindy
Hi. I just looked at another site for chocolate syrup that called for allulose sweetener; it supposedly does not crystalize after heating. I hope that helps.
Janae Bissinger
Would powdering the erythritol (blender or food processor) or using powdered erythritol solve the crystallizing problem?
Lisa MarcAurele
It helps a little but from my own experience, I've still had the crystallization happen. It has to do with the amount used more than whether it's powdered or not.
Brenda Gutierrez
Good afternoon, do you recommend refrigerating the prepared syrup or room temp storage?
Lisa MarcAurele
It should be kept in the refrigerator.
Margaret Freeman
Gorgeous, silky thick and rich. Thanks so much for this sauce! It will be very nice in hot cocoa and drizzled over ice cream. Love all your recipes.