How to Make Chocolate Spread Without Palm Oil
Last updated: August 2026
Making a palm oil free chocolate spread at home is easier than the ingredient panel on most shop-bought jars would have you believe. You need a food processor, about 20 minutes, and a handful of pantry staples — no palm oil, no emulsifiers, no words you have to Google. This guide covers why nearly every big-brand spread leans on palm oil, what to use instead so your version still spreads properly, and a simple recipe you can make this afternoon.
[IMAGE: A jar of glossy dark chocolate spread on a wooden board, knife loaded with spread resting across a slice of toast, natural window light.]
Why do chocolate spreads use palm oil in the first place?
Palm oil does three jobs at once, which is exactly why manufacturers love it. It is solid at room temperature but melts near body heat, so it keeps a spread firm on the shelf and smooth on the knife. It stops the natural oils in the nuts from separating and pooling on top of the jar. And it is cheap and shelf-stable, so the spread lasts months without splitting.
That is the whole appeal in one sentence: palm oil is a cheap way to make a spread that never separates and never needs refrigerating. The trade-off is what comes with it. Palm oil is roughly 50% saturated fat, and it carries a well-documented environmental cost.
According to WWF's guidance on palm oil, it remains a major driver of deforestation in some of the world's most biodiverse forests, threatening species like the orangutan. WWF's position is worth reading carefully, because it is not a blanket "avoid it" message — certified sustainable palm oil exists, and boycotting it entirely can push producers towards even thirstier crops. But when you are making a spread yourself, the simplest move is to leave it out and reach for something you already trust.
What to use instead of palm oil
The good news is you do not need a like-for-like replacement. Once you blend nuts or seeds long enough, they release their own oils and become a naturally creamy butter — that butter is your base, and it does most of the structural work palm oil would have done. From there, a small amount of a liquid or soft oil fine-tunes the texture.
| Swap | What it does | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Coconut oil | Sets firm when cold, so the spread scoops cleanly from the fridge | It solidifies more than any other option — great for a firmer jar, less good if you want it pourable |
| Neutral oil (sunflower, rapeseed) | Loosens the spread to an easy, glossy consistency | Stays soft at room temperature; add a teaspoon at a time so you do not overshoot |
| Hazelnut or avocado oil | Adds smoothness with either extra nutty flavour or a mild neutral finish | A nicer flavour than plain vegetable oil, though pricier |
| Nothing at all | Lets the nut or seed butter stand on its own | Works well if you blend long enough; the spread will simply firm up more in the fridge |
The one thing to accept up front: a palm oil free chocolate spread will separate a little and firm up in the fridge. That is not a fault, it is the absence of the additive that prevents it. A quick stir and 10 minutes out of the fridge fixes both.
A simple palm oil free chocolate spread recipe
This is a hazelnut version, the closest thing to the spread most people are trying to replace. If your house is nut-free, swap the hazelnuts for the same weight of sunflower seeds and follow our nut-free chocolate spread recipe instead — the method is nearly identical.
Ingredients
- 200g blanched hazelnuts
- 3 tbsp cocoa or raw cacao powder
- 3–4 tbsp maple syrup or honey, to taste
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- A pinch of fine sea salt
- 1–2 tsp coconut oil or neutral oil, only if needed
Method
- Roast the hazelnuts at 180°C for eight to 10 minutes until golden and fragrant. Tip them onto a clean tea towel and rub off as much loose skin as you can — the skins turn the spread bitter.
- Let them cool for five minutes, then blend in a food processor. Be patient: they go from crumbs to a dry paste to a stiff ball before finally turning into a loose, glossy butter. This takes eight to 12 minutes, so scrape the sides down and keep going.
- Once you have a smooth hazelnut butter, add the cocoa, maple syrup, vanilla and salt. Blend again for a minute until dark and glossy.
- Check the texture. If it feels too thick, add oil half a teaspoon at a time and blend until it loosens to where you want it. If you like it firmer, leave it as is and let the fridge do the work.
- Taste, adjust the sweetness, and spoon into a clean jar.
That is a five-minute active job wrapped around a lot of blending. The processor does the hard part; you just have to trust it and not add liquid too early.
How to keep it spreadable without palm oil
Texture is where homemade versions can trip people up, so a few small habits make all the difference. Blend the nuts far longer than feels reasonable — most people stop while it is still a paste, which is exactly when it is about to turn into butter. If it never quite loosens, your nuts may simply be dry, and a teaspoon of oil brings it back.
Store the jar somewhere sensible for how you eat it. Kept in a cupboard, a palm oil free spread stays soft and knife-ready but has a shorter life of about a week. Kept in the fridge, it lasts two to three weeks but firms up, so take it out 10 minutes before toast. Either way, give it a stir if the oil has risen — that is the nuts doing what nuts do, not the spread going off.
Is palm oil free actually healthier?
Leaving palm oil out is mainly an environmental and ingredient-quality choice rather than a dramatic nutritional one, and it is worth being honest about that. A homemade spread is still a treat — hazelnuts and cocoa are calorie-dense, and however you sweeten it, sugar is sugar.
What you do gain is control. You decide how much sweetener goes in, you skip the emulsifiers and flavourings, and you swap around 50% saturated palm oil for the unsaturated fats naturally found in nuts and seeds. The NHS guidance on saturated fat suggests most adults cap saturated fat at around 30g a day for men and 20g for women, and shifting towards unsaturated fats is one of its core recommendations. A homemade jar makes that shift for you without any special effort.
If you would rather understand what is in the shop-bought jar before you commit to making your own, our breakdown of what is really in your kids' chocolate spread walks through a typical label line by line, and our guide to whether your chocolate spread is ultra-processed covers how to spot the additives palm oil usually travels with.
Shop-bought palm oil free options
Making your own is the surest way to skip palm oil, but a few UK brands manage it too, if you would rather buy a jar. Some use sunflower or rapeseed oil and lecithin in place of palm oil to hold the texture together, while others lean on coconut. Ingredient formulations change often, so always check the current label rather than trusting a brand's reputation — the panel is the only thing that tells you the truth.
For a fuller picture of how the supermarket options stack up on palm oil, sugar and nut content, see our honest ranking after we tried every supermarket chocolate spread. And if you are building a small repertoire of homemade jars, this recipe sits alongside the others in our full guide to homemade chocolate spread recipes.
The short version
Palm oil is in most spreads because it is cheap, keeps things smooth and never separates — not because it tastes good. Leave it out, blend your nuts or seeds properly, and use a touch of coconut or neutral oil to dial in the texture. You end up with a palm oil free chocolate spread that your kids will happily eat and that you can read the label of, because you wrote it.
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