Are you craving a rich, chocolaty treat without the guilt? Do you need a low-carb, sugar-free chocolate syrup recipe for keto chocolate milk and ice cream sundaes? There's no need to buy one! This article provides everything you need to know. When it comes to decadent desserts, nothing is better than a thick and rich chocolate sauce. This 5 ingredient recipe for sugar-free chocolate fudge sauce is the perfect topping for any low-carb treat!
Why Make Your Own Keto Chocolate Sauce?
In the past, finding sugar-free options often meant resorting to products with artificial sweeteners and questionable ingredients. 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. Eventually, I stopped buying commercially prepared products that contain artificial sweeteners. 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.
The Problem with Store-Bought Syrups
Many commercial sugar-free syrups contain artificial sweeteners, preservatives, and other additives that might not align with a clean keto lifestyle.
The Benefits of Homemade
Making your own keto chocolate sauce allows you to control the ingredients, ensuring a delicious and healthy treat. My Sugar-Free Chocolate Fudge Sauce is the kind of recipe every low-carb need in their fridge. Trust me, this stuff is addicting and you’ll be making this easy dessert topping over and over again.
Key Ingredients for Keto Chocolate Sauce
You only need a few ingredients to get the iconic flavor of Hershey without those artificial ingredients.
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- Unsweetened Cocoa Powder: Regular unsweetened cocoa powder is what I use to provide a natural flavor. Check the carb count on the cocoa. Some unsweetened cocoa powders have less carbs than others.
- Keto-Friendly 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.
- Allulose: If you want this creamy, smooth, and thick chocolate sauce then you really need to stick to the allulose for the sweetener. Allulose is a sugar alternative that is roughly 70% as sweet as sugar, so it tastes very similar and works well to replace it in baked goods and sauces like this one.
- Heavy Whipping Cream: Along with the allulose the other ingredients are water, unsweetened cocoa powder, a pinch of salt, and a few tablespoons of heavy whipping cream (also known as double cream in other countries).
- Water: Combine water, cocoa powder, sweetener, and salt in medium pot.
- Thickener (Optional): Add a thickener. You can thicken up the syrup by adding in a little xanthan gum or guar gum.
- Salt: dash of salt (optional)
Step-by-Step Keto Chocolate Sauce Recipe
You don’t need much time to make this chocolate sauce thankfully, because it comes together fast and only needs about 15 minutes to cook. So if you have a few minutes and some extra time for chilling afterward, you’ll have a perfectly thick and rich chocolate fudge sauce that will make all your dessert dreams come true!
Ingredients:
- Allulose sweetener
- Unsweetened cocoa
- Water
- Heavy cream
- Salt (optional)
Instructions:
- Add the allulose sweetener, unsweetened cocoa, and water to a medium saucepan over medium heat.
- Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring very often as it comes up to that boil. Use a whisk. I find that a whisk helps blend the cocoa powder into the liquid best. You should be able to whip this chocolate syrup up within 10 or 15 minutes.
- Once it is boiling turn the heat down to lower so that the chocolate sauce stays at a constant low boil.
- Add in the heavy cream and mix well.
- Let the mixture cook on a strong simmer for 7 to 8 minutes, watching closely and stirring occasionally. Simmer on low for 5-10 minutes. Mixture should thicken up a bit.
- After it as simmered carefully remove it from the heat and let it cool completely. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla stevia.
- Add it to a container with a lid and refrigerate until serving. The sauce will thicken up as it cools.
Important Notes:
- 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.
Sweetener Options: Allulose and Its Benefits
Most chocolate fudge sauces like this one will call for corn syrup or white can sugar but thankfully there is a sugar alternative called Allulose that is a fantastic replacement for all of those and it doesn’t elevate blood sugar in most cases.
Why Allulose?
I’ve found over the years that allulose is the perfect sweetener for these types of sauces. It melts down like sugar and cooks nearly the same when it comes to cooking it to a soft boil stage for thickening purposes. Most low-carb or keto sweeteners will contain Erythritol in them, which gives them the bulk of their sweetness, but although erythritol will also melt down like sugar it will not main in a smooth melted state once it is cooled or chilled.
The Unique Properties of Allulose
Unlike Erythritol, the properties of allulose are special. It will melt down and mix into the sauce you are preparing while hot, but it will also stay smooth and creamy as the sauce cools down. You can even count on it staying this way as it remains in the refrigerator over a long period of time where the erythritol would recrystallize causing your sauce to lose all that amazing creaminess.
Potential Downsides of Allulose
However, with all this gushing I’m doing about Allulose I’d not be a good friend if I didn’t let you know about the downside to allulose. It is not a deal breaker for myself or my family allulose has been known to cause some stomach discomfort in some people. This discomfort often comes when they have overconsumed the allulose and not stuck to the recommended serving sizes. So just keep that in mind if you get a hankering for a double serving of this chocolate sauce.
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Other Sweetener Options
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. Is stevia keto friendly?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?
How to Store Your Keto Chocolate Sauce
Once you’ve cooked your chocolate fudge sauce and you are ready to let it cool and store it away you’ll find that the best way to do this is in an airtight container with a lid.
Best Storage Practices
I recommend using a glass storage bowl with a lid or a pint-size mason jar because pouring hot chocolate into place containers just might lead to a mess if things melt the plastic. This amazing chocolate sauce makes over a cup of sauce so you’ll be happy to know there is no rush to eat it all as it will hold up extremely well in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks as long as it is stored properly. If for some reason you want to be able to use it all by then you can freeze some for later and pull it out to thaw a few hours before you want to serve it.
Delicious Ways to Use Keto Chocolate Sauce
This sweet and delicious dessert sauce can be so useful in your day-to-day life. It can be used for many different recipes or dessert toppings. The delicious taste of chocolate syrup can be used in so many ways! Here are a few of my recommendations for using this Sugar-Free Chocolate Fudge Sauce:
- It blends well with unsweetened almond milk or coconut milk for a keto chocolate milk or hot cocoa. Stir some into some almond or coconut milk for a Keto friendly chocolate milk!
- Use it as a tasty topping for low carb ice cream to make a chocolate sundae. This sauce works great cold drizzled on anything but if you want to step it up a notch and have a hot fudge sundae all you need to do is portion your sauce out and heat it a few seconds in the microwave before pouring it over your favorite sugar-free ice cream.
- It's great for adding extra goodness to keto treats. Top your favorite Keto cheesecake with some of this chocolate fudge sauce and many some low-carb caramel sauce for the perfect turtle cheesecake slice!
- Drizzle some up the sizes of your glass if you want to mimic those pricey coffee drinks you get through drive-throughs. This sauce makes such a delicious mocha Frappuccino topping!
- Mix a couple of tablespoons into some heavy whipping cream and whip it up into a quick single-serve chocolate mousse option.
- Eat it by the spoonful!
Keto-Friendly Considerations
Is Hershey's sugar free chocolate syrup keto?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. How many carbs in sugar free chocolate syrup?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. What is the best sugar free chocolate syrup to buy?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.
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Nutritional Information
I make my sugar-free chocolate fudge with simple ingredients that are low in carbs, meaning this delectable topping will have only a couple of carbs and pretty low calories and fat per serving. But don’t let that worry you at all, because it is so delicious that you’ll feel like you are cheating and indulging in a sugary and delectable treat.
Per Serving:
- Calories: 20
- Total Fat: 2g
- Saturated Fat: 1.8g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Unsaturated Fat: 0g
- Cholesterol: 4mg
- Sodium: 15mg
- Carbohydrates: 1.11g
- Net Carbohydrates: 0.45g
- Fiber: 0.66g
- Sugar: 0g
- Protein: 1g
Is This Chocolate Fudge Sauce Keto?
Yes, absolutely it! This creamy sauce is not only Keto friendly it is a great Trim Healthy Mama “S” recipe and would work well for anyone that needs to watch their blood sugars.
Important Reminder:
I am not a nutritionist. The total net carbs per tablespoon for this chocolate sauce is 13.11 grams with 12 of those being from the sweetener Allulose. This sweetener is not considered a sugar alcohol technically so I don't add it to the nutrition card.