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Creamy and decadent Slow Cooker Hot Chocolate made easy with a secret ingredient to make this the BEST hot chocolate!
Forget the boxed or powdered store bought stuff. Combining a handful of ingredients you may already have in your kitchen pantry makes the most decadent, mouthwatering slow cooker hot chocolate. The perfect beverage centrepiece for your holiday table… your guests can serve themselves.
It does not get any easier than this!
HOMEMADE SLOW COOKER HOT CHOCOLATE
There’s nothing better on a cold and miserable day to warm the cockles of your heart with a steaming cup of hot cocoa. Throw the ingredients in a slow cooker and let it work its magic for you!
Rich, decadent and perfectly creamy…make it for yourself, your family, OR to entertain a crowd.
SERVING IDEAS
Leave your slow cooker on warm setting, set a table up with mugs ready for your guests to serve themselves. Provide a buffet table with bowls full of optional toppings like chocolate morsels, hot fudge sauce, crushed candy canes, crushed pretzels or chocolate chip cookies, more marshmallows or chocolate flakes and please everyone at your party.
All you need 5 minutes to throw it all into your slow cooker bowl and hot chocolate is yours!
HOW TO MAKE HOT CHOCOLATE IN A CROCK POT
For an incredibly creamy hot chocolate, use full fat milk and regular evaporated milk (or heavy cream). To save some calories, you can use 2% milk, low fat evaporated milk and a natural granulated sweetener.
You can use all milk if you wish and skip the evaporated milk or heavy creamy, but the addition of one of those makes your hot cocoa so creamy with a rich, velvety texture and flavour.
For the ultimate chocolate experience, you’re going to use a combination of semisweet chocolate chips and unsweetened cocoa powder. I love using Hershey’s unsweetened, but you can use a dutch process cocoa powder or any kind you have on hand. This is a very versatile and forgiving recipe to make it your own!
Throw a handful of marshmallows in right at the end, wait for them to melt, stir them through and get ready to go back to your slow cooker for seconds and thirds! The marshmallows make it even creamier with a frothy top.
WILL THE MILK CURDLE IN THE SLOW COOKER?
Not at all. With the slow cooker set to low, the ingredients heat up together slowly so the milk doesn’t “cook” or get a chance to boil.
WHY USE CHOCOLATE CHIPS AND NOT JUST COCOA POWDER?
The decadent chocolate flavour and texture provided from chocolate chips is incredible and a huge upgrade from regular hot chocolate. You can leave them out if you wish, but you won’t get the richness!
Need more hot chocolate recipes to warm up these holidays? Try these!
Classic Hot Chocolate
Nutella Hot Chocolate
Peanut Butter Nutella Hot Chocolate
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Slow Cooker Hot Chocolate
Ingredients
- 1.5 quarts milk full cream or 2%
- 24 oz evaporated milk or 2 cups heavy cream
- 6 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
- 1 pinch coarse salt optional
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup marshmallows optional
Instructions
- Combine all of the ingredients into a 6-quart slow cooker bowl.
- Whisk vigorously until cocoa powder has dissolved and ingredients are well combined (about 5 minutes).
- Cook for 2-3 hours on low setting while whisking occasionally to prevent the chocolate from burning on the bottom.
- When hot chocolate is ready, add marshmallows into the hot chocolate and let melt little before serving.Additional toppings: finely chopped (or flaked) chocolate), chocolate fudge sauce, chocolate chips, smashed candy canes.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hot chocolate is also amazing with Liqueurs such as Peppermint Snapps, Chocolate Liqueur, Creme de Mint, Chambord, Kahlua or a “mixture of Liqueurs or almost anything you can think of, for of course
adult drinks and added to the indivdual cup of hot chocolate. Just something to think about!
Chris
This was amazing… like a melted fudgesicle. Everyone loved it. Thanks for sharing your recipes!
This looks amazing and I will serve this both Christmas Eve with the family and Christmas morning with the kids and hubby! Easy to bring along in a crock pot! The kids and i always look for new traditions and maybe this crockpot hot chocolate on Christmas morning can be our new one! We do make hot chocolate ornaments for our tree and we make them Christmas morning but perhaps we could fill them now with the chocolate chips and cocoa and add them to the crockpot in the morning. Thank you for all of your recipes. 95% of my dinners weekly come from you! You’ve made me a great cook!
Brandie that’s so GREAT TO HEAR! You made my morning! I LOVE your idea re filling hot chocolate ornaments. So clever, creative and fun! I’m so so happy you’re enjoying my recipes. Sending you a virtual high five! Happy holidays to you all!
This sounds incredible.
Thank you Betsyros!