This homemade Nutella is nothing like the one you’d find in a grocery store.
I recently spoke at The YMCA of Mississauga, and I had a lot of parents ask me for my opinion of Nutella for their growing athletes.
Hazelnuts are GREAT and cocoa powder is GREAT! (Their two big marketed ingredients).
But the rest of the garbage they throw in Nutella you can do without.
So, with so much love, here is a MUCH healthier version that WILL fuel little, growing brains.
This healthy spread mimics the taste of Nutella, but it maintains the nutritional rockstar status of hazelnuts and cocoa instead of over-taking once-healthy ingredients with sugar.
You can make this as an AMAZING step up from where you’re at right now health-wise.
Happy Spreading!!
Homemade Nutella Recipe:
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup of hazelnuts
3 tbsp. coconut oil
3 tbsp. agave nectar
1/4 cup raw cacao (this is an AMAZING superfood)
3 tbsp. pure maple syrup
3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp. vanilla
1/8 tsp. sea salt (optional)
Method:
1. Roast hazelnuts in a pan on low heat for 10+ minutes until rich in flavour (once they’re super-fragrant, they’re done – don’t over-cook them!).
2. Let hazelnuts cool while adding the rest of your ingredients to a high-speed blender or food processor.
3. Add in cooled hazelnuts and blend until smooth.
4. Taste, then add more sweetener if necessary or more almond milk if it’s too thick!
5. Store in a glass jar in the fridge, and feel great that you just did something AWESOME for yourself, your child or (in my case) your boyfriend!
Nutritional Benefits:
-Hazelnuts are an amazing source of monounsaturated fats, the kind that have been associated with an ability to lower LDL cholesterol, and reduce the risk of heart disease.
-Cocoa is a complete protein, and loaded in minerals!
-Raw Cacao is one of the MOST antioxidant-rich foods ON THE PLANET!! (That means it helps prevent damage to your body!)
-Nutella’s 1st ingredient (the highest % of the product!) is sugar! If we listed ingredients in the same way for this recipe, it would be: hazelnuts, almond milk, cacao, cocoa, coconut oil, agave syrup, maple syrup, vanilla and sea salt – a bunch of ingredients before we even GET to the sweeteners!
-Even if we combine the sugars (maple syrup & agave), hazelnuts are still the highest % of this final product! Which means that our blood sugar levels are happy, and our brains are ACTUALLY ready to learn!
