Hot Chocolate Made Healthy, Frugal
The best part of snow days is a cup of healthy hot chocolate. This recipe is simple and doesn’t get any easier than this. Allergy/THM/Keto/Paleo friendly. You choose!
My favorite drink – I mean FAVORITE drink – on cold, wintry days and nights is hot chocolate. Seriously, because … C H O C O L A T E !!! Yes, it just took me a little extra effort to type the word chocolate out just then with those extra spaces. But I felt it absolutely necessary to get my point across with the extra fervor that those spaces somehow project. Don’t you think? Maybe it’s just me.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, the snow finally came this past week! The girls were overjoyed and tickled frosty to play out in that frozen, white, fluffy stuff. I’m tell’n ya, they never finished their school work so fast. Sorry, kids. Homeschooled. No snow-day excuses for you.
Now before you go throw’n the tisk-tisks my way, I’m not completely heartless. There wasn’t enough accumulation for them to enjoy it yet anyway. So I thought their time was better served in getting their schoolwork done. Sheesh. 😉
Making Memories
After some of that fluffy snow finally accumulated, they had such a time outside in it. Daughter #3 used my old, large, plastic storage containers to pack with snow and build a snow castle. Daughter #4 loved making snow angels and snowmen. Everywhere. This mama didn’t get to enjoy one bit of pristine, untouched blanket of white.
Then the two youngest started building a snowman together. And what an undertaking they had! So big that they recruited bigger people to help. The nice neighbor lady felt sorry for them and joined in. Then older sister had to help. Man cub saw what they were trying to accomplish: lifting a 125 lb ball of midsection up onto the equally large base. Dad to the rescue!
Of course, I enjoyed the entertainment from inside the window. Where I was toasty warm. From wood heat. Ahhhhh.
Homemade Hot chocolate – I thought it was healthier
My family has been super sports, putting up with my health studies, enduring my learning and implementing of new techniques, all while substituting the culture’s provisions of everyday consumption for healthier options and lifestyle. In other words, ditching the boxed, convenient foods.
I used to make hot cocoa the standard way: heat up some milk: add cocoa powder. Then comes the sugar. As in the white, bleached, super-refined, giving everyone health issues, kind of sugar. I also had been known to open an envelope of the Swiss-natured variety. But hey, that’s the way it’s always been taught, and offered as the norm.
Why the need for a healthier option?
Now that I’m so much older wiser in the ways of whole foods and such, I make it much differently. At the beginning it was because of much needed weight loss for myself and the discovery of the Trim Healthy Mama plan. Since then, it’s also been for our youngest and her dietary special needs due to epilepsy. I had noticed an increase in seizures when she consumed refined sugars, among other things.
As a result, I made a hot chocolate that we could all enjoy without the guilt. Or increased seizures. I’ve made dairy-free, sugar-free, keto, and paleo versions.
Today I’ll share with you the simple, get-er-done style that makes it to the lips in no time.
Frugal dairy-free option with homemade cashew milk
Guys – to know me is to know that I like a deal, a budget, and a DIY because it’s cheaper. We can’t buy raw milk right now because one of us is dairy free, so I make cashew milk. Yes, make. I’ve made coconut and almond milks, too. By far the cashew milk is easier and faster. SIMPLE, in other words. Yes, sister! That’s my love language, hee hee.
It’s so simple, in fact, that I can share it right here, right now. All you need is a cup of cashews that have been soaked in water overnight. Once rinsed and drained, add the cashews to your high-speed blender with 4 cups of water and process for 1 minute. (I may also have been known to want a hot cup of cocoa and not have a pre-soaked bag of cashews waiting at the ready in the freezer, thus throwing the cup of cashews, not soaked, into blender and blending it extra long and pretending that no one will know. Which they don’t, by the way.) Pour into a half-gallon glass jar and fill to the top with water. In the words of my teenager, “Wha-tcham!”, and you have half a gallon of cashew milk. No straining through a cheesecloth. You’re welcome. 😉
What to use for sweetener
Just as in choosing what kind of milk to use, this is where your personal preference and needs can be customized. For now, our family uses sugar-free or less-refined options. Stevia, erythritol, honey, and pure maple syrup are on our shelves.
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Hot chocolate how-to video
The ingredients
- 4 cups milk of choice (cashew milk is my go-to choice, read how to make above)
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 2-4 tbl of maple syrup, honey, or sucanut sugar, to taste; for sugar-free, use erythritol and stevia to taste. I personally use Trader Joe’s stevia extract.
- sea salt – a few pinches to taste
- 1/4 tsp glucomannan, optional (not needed if using milk or store-bought nut milks)
- 1/4 tsp vanilla
The instructions
- Warm milk on the stove over MED heat
- While milk is heating, whisk in cocoa powder, sweetener, salt, glucomannan (optional), and vanilla
- Heat until all is dissolved and thoroughly mixed. Enjoy!
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I order a lot of my pantry staples through Amazon, Azure (a local farm co-op), Trim Healthy Mama, and shop regularly at Costco, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s. Bulk is usually the best buy. When Costco is out of organic cocoa, or cacao, powder (apparently it’s seasonal) I order from Amazon.
What’s Your favorite hot chocolate recipe?
Sitting around the table, living room, or fire with a mug of hot chocolate creates such sweet memories. Are your kids as crazy as mine about hot chocolate? What’s your favorite recipe? Let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear all about it!
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