In honor of National Hot Chocolate Day (yes, that’s a thing), we’re bringing this recipe over from our old site with a few updated photos and an extra addition: vegan salted caramel! We don’t make hot chocolate often, but when we do, we go all out and make it super decadent.
We always add a bit of maca and lucuma powder to our hot chocolate. Maca, a root vegetable native to the Andes in Peru, is ground down to make an antioxidant-rich powder that is known to enhance energy and mood. If you haven’t tried it before, start with a very small amount to test its effect on your body. Lucuma, a fruit (also native to Peru!), is a natural sweetener that adds a caramel sort of taste. When we visited Peru a few years ago, we saw lucuma and maca in all sorts of dishes – lucuma especially, which makes a seriously incredible ice cream flavor! Since then, we’ve incorporated both powders into our diets and pair them with rich, sweet flavors like vanilla and chocolate.
You can find the recipe for our homemade vegan salted caramel here. If you don’t feel like making it (or don’t have a store-bought version), simply omit from the recipe – it will still taste delicious! If you do have the time/energy, we highly recommend making it. See below photo if you need some convincing 😉
We use FlavaNaturals dark chocolate and unsweetened cocoa powder for this recipe (and all of our other chocolate-based recipes!). FlavaNaturals is a breakthrough chocolate company making amazing dark chocolate with 5-9x the cocoa flavanol antioxidants or regular dark chocolate!! I (Lexi) was lucky to connect with the founder of FlavaNaturals about a year ago (the products officially launched about 3 months ago) and have since been working for them as social media director and photographer. It’s so much fun to work with such a unique and exciting product. We highly suggest checking them out here!
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This velvety hot cocoa is completely dairy free, and full of nutrients.
Ingredients
- 2 cups unsweetened almond milk (or other nondairy milk)
- 1 packet FlavaMix Unsweetened Drinking Chocolate (or 1 tsp cacao powder)
- 1.5 oz dark chocolate, chopped
- 2 tbsp pure maple syrup
- 2 tbsp vegan salted caramel
- 1 tsp maca powder
- 2 tsp lucuma powder
- Pinch of sea salt
Instructions
- If making homemade caramel, follow these instructions.
- Heat almond milk in a saucepan over medium heat.
- Once warm, add in rest of ingredients and whisk until chocolate is dissolved.
- Pour into mug and top with vegan marshmallows and shaved chocolate (and more salted caramel if desired!)
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