Let’s mix up our hot cocoa routine with pretty pink strawberry hot chocolate! My homemade version is dairy-free, refined sugar-free, and has real strawberries in it (no strawberry syrup needed here!). Perfect for Valentine’s Day or any day.
5 Ingredient Healthy Strawberry Hot Chocolate Recipe
I adore this pretty pink hot cocoa mix. I’ve seen a lot of recipes for strawberry hot chocolate that are loaded with ingredients that I don’t want to enjoy all of the time, like white chocolate chips or sugary syrups with artificial strawberry flavoring.
I’d rather have the real deal and natural sweetness in my delicious treat, so I created one I feel good serving myself and my family!
Most of the time I make it as is, but to get an added protein boost I love stirring in a scoop or two of collagen peptides. It adds no flavors but gives protein to this tasty drink.
Why you’ll love this strawberry hot cocoa recipe
The best strawberry flavor – The combo of frozen strawberries and freeze-dried strawberries gives you such an intense and tasty strawberry flavor. Feel free to use this combo for any strawberry drink mix in the future too!
Simple to make – You start by making an easy strawberry milk mix by blending the 2 kinds of strawberries and milk. After that is done, warm with cacao butter and maple syrup, and your creamy and delicious hot chocolate is done!
Better ingredients – Instead of using white chocolate chips like many recipes for strawberry white hot chocolate calls for, we’re using cacao butter which is the base of my homemade dark chocolate. It gives the great chocolate mouth feel you want when you add any chocolate chip or bar into hot cocoa!
Simple ingredients you need for pink hot chocolate
Scroll down to view the recipe card below for the full ingredients list, nutrition facts, and step-by-step instructions.
- non-dairy milk
- freeze-dried strawberries
- frozen strawberries
- maple syrup
- cacao butter
How to make a strawberry hot chocolate mix
Step 1: To a small blender add the milk, freeze-dried strawberries, and frozen strawberries. Blend until smooth, for about 15-20 seconds.
Step 2: Pour into a medium saucepan and warm over medium heat. Add the maple syrup and cacao butter while the drink warms. Whisk to combine.
Step 3: When heated through, pour into 2 cups, and add dairy-free homemade whipped cream and a sprinkle of crushed freeze-dried strawberries and enjoy your warm drinks!
Watch me make cozy pink hot cocoa
The full how to video can be watched below, or on my YouTube channel!
Can you turn this into strawberry hot chocolate bombs?
Definitely! Taking inspiration from my Christmas tree hot cocoa bombs, you can make some in half spheres or use a heart-shaped silicone mold.
For the powdered mix, you’ll need to adjust the recipe slightly to not include any wet ingredients.
Use extra freeze-dried strawberry powder, opt for cane sugar or coconut sugar in place of the maple syrup, and grate the cacao butter so that it can evenly mix with the other ingredients.
Make the chocolate shell using your favorite type of chocolate (white chocolate to see the pink color come through), and add the pink drink powder mix to the mold cavities once the shell has hardened.
Add another layer of melted chocolate to seal the shell and store them in an airtight container at room temperature until you’re ready to use for hot drinks.
To serve, heat milk, add a hot cocoa bomb into your mug, pour the hot milk over it, stir to melt, and enjoy!
Substitutions, optional variations & dietary adjustments
Below you’ll find a list of substitutions that will work well in this strawberry hot cocoa mix recipe.
If you try something different out, please leave a comment below letting us all know how it turned out!
Non-dairy milk – Almond milk, oat milk, cashew milk, carton coconut milk, or macadamia nut milk all work great for this recipe. If dairy is okay for you, feel free to use whole milk in place of dairy-free milk.
Freeze-dried strawberries – If you can find freeze-dried strawberry powder you can use that. Freeze-dried raspberries would be a delicious alternative.
Frozen strawberries – Fresh strawberries are a perfect substitution for frozen. Other berries like raspberries or even cherries work well here too!
Maple syrup – Honey and agave nectar are both good liquid sweetener alternatives. You can also use cane sugar or coconut sugar in place of maple syrup.
Cacao butter – While there is no 1:1 replacement for cacao butter, you can use coconut butter, which will give a coconut flavor to the drink. You can also use white chocolate in its place, however, you’ll want to remove any other added sweetener since the white chocolate would add lots of sweetness to your drink.
More dairy-free recipes you’ll love
5 Ingredient Healthy Strawberry Hot Chocolate Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups non-dairy milk
- ½ cup freeze-dried strawberries
- ⅓ cup frozen strawberries
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 2 tbsp cacao butter
Instructions
- To a small blender add the milk, freeze-dried strawberries, and frozen strawberries. Blend until smooth, for about 15-20 seconds.
- Pour into a medium saucepan and warm over medium heat. Add the maple syrup and cacao butter while the drink warms. Whisk to combine.
- When heated through, pour into 2 cups, and add dairy-free homemade whipped cream and a sprinkle of crushed freeze-dried strawberries and enjoy your warm drinks!
Nutrition
If you try this strawberry hot chocolate recipe, I’d love it if you left a star rating and comment below letting me know how it turned out!
XO
Heather
