4-ingredient, dairy-free chocolate sauce

4-INGREDIENT, DAIRY-FREE CHOCOLATE SAUCE
Does what it says on the tin – a quick, simple chocolate sauce recipe that you can pour over whatever dessert takes your fancy. If you’re out of chocolate, all you’ll need is a bit of cocoa powder and the job’s a goodun.
PREP TIME: 2 MINUTES
COOK TIME: 6 MINUTES
TOTAL TIME: 8 MINUTES

Using cocoa powder instead of chocolate
If you’ve had a go at my gluten free brownie pots recipe, you’ll know that I’m a fan of using simple ingredients that don’t require a separate trip to the shops to get.
Chocolate is something that barely survives for two hours in my house, so I make a point of never buying it unless I’m having an emotional crisis.
As a result, this chocolate sauce recipe only relies on cocoa powder. It’s thick, rich, glossy and intensely chocolately – and it only uses 4 ingredients and takes less than 10 minutes.
Ingredients
- Cocoa powder
- Vegan butter
- Sugar
- Dairy-free milk
Told you it was simple!

What to pair it with
You can drizzle this sauce over whatever dessert takes your fancy.
It would be great served warm over:
- (vegan) ice cream
- chocolate cake/pudding/brownies
- fresh banana bread
- anything else you feel like trying. I reckon it would be great over apple cake or something similar. I’ll let you know when I’ve tried it!
Consistency tips
Aka – to pour or not to pour.
You can play around with the thickness of this sauce quite easily by modifying the amount of milk and butter that you add.
For thicker sauces, double the quantity of butter and just add a very small drizzle of milk so it’s not just a paste. Then allow it to simmer for the 10 minutes, adding extra dribbles of milk as needed.
For thinner sauces, keep the butter as stated in the recipe below, but add more milk until it reaches the desired consistency.
For both cases, you may want to play around with adding a bit extra cocoa powder and sugar to suit your own taste. This recipe is more of a guideline quantity and method – it’s extremely forgiving to improvisation.
4-ingredient dairy-free chocolate sauce
Equipment
- Small saucepan
Ingredients
- 50 g (¼ cup) vegan butter
- 4 tbsp cocoa powder
- 20 g (⅛ cup) granulated or golden caster sugar
- 100 ml dairy free milk - coconut milk compliments this best
Instructions
- In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt the butter on a low heat
- Add the sugar and whisk together until combined
- Tip in the cocoa powder and whisk together to form a thick paste
- Turn up the heat to medium-high and add the milk
- Whisk constantly until a smooth sauce is formed
- Continue to whisk and heat the sauce for 6 minutes. It should be bubbling/simmering, but not boiling
- If desired, add more milk for a thinner sauce
- Add more sugar or cocoa powder to taste
- Pour over a delicious dessert base and serve

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