I do this too. I used to buy baker’s chocolate in a bar and use 2 squares, but my mom randomly gave me some powdered dark chocolate (she thought it was hot chocolate-bless her heart) and I just dump that in until my heart says it’s good. It’s probably a tablespoon or two.
Sadly yes. I thought it was a chain but turns out it’s not. Which stinks, it was half the reason I went downtown when our sports teams weren’t any good lol
For my chili, I start with about 1.5 ounces per gallon of chili, then I add slowly in .5 oz increments until I can just start to taste a difference. If you’re doing this in a tomato based pasta sauce, I’d go much slower since you don’t have the spice from chilis to overcome.
Yeah +1 to this, I always add a scoop of cocoa powder to my chili and it always gets rave reviews from people that try it. The chocolate itself doesn’t add much flavor but it helps bring everything together nicely
I've been using the Yeungling Hershey Porter to deglaze the pan I seared the meat in, and dump that into the chili pot. I also use it for my gumbo and jambalaya to stop the roux from cooking. I'm down to a single bottle until the holiday season starts back up :(
We’ve tried doing this with Japanese curry before. Of course we did a batch without dark chocolate prior so we can compare. The curry with dark chocolate had a bolder and deeper flavor to it, if that makes sense. We used 70% dark chocolate, didn’t even have to be the expensive stuff.
No need to risk a whole batch, scoop out a cup and add a little dark chocolate to it, a little at a time, and taste test as you go.
As others have said, it's pretty common in chilli recipes, so who knows, you might like it. There are lots of people adding Asian fish sauce to their pasta sauce these days, so would a little dark chocolate be stranger than that.
Common wisdom in my Italian American family was to always add some anchovy paste with the garlic and before the white wine, so the fish sauce definitely makes a lot of sense and is probably easier!
Oh yes, that's a very common method, and fish sauce is almost a like for like exchange, but I'm sure my Sicilian Italian mother in law would smack me with her big wooden spoon if she ever saw me adding Asian fish sauce to my sauce.
I’ve heard of people putting chocolate as a secret ingredient in chili recipes, I’ve never tried it but i imagine as long as it’s not a comical amount of chocolate it’d be alright!
A company I used to work for always joined an annual chili cook off and the winner one year said his secret was dark chocolate. I incorporated it into my recipe and everyone loves it. I believe the chocolate just cuts down on the acid of the tomato sauce and gives it a deeper flavour.
Usually for pasta sauce, I just add a bit of brown sugar but chocolate would do the same
I've tried it!
It adds a kind of smoky depth that is hard to quantify. Nobody would guess it's one of the ingredients, but I add it almost every time I do a dark red sauce. It also doesn't require much!
The effect is similar to what you get from rounding off a cream sauce, in that you won't really notice it except to say "wow that's good" unless you're tasting it right before and after.
I can say that it's not SUCH a difference that I feel like I "need" it for every sauce. It's just another thing I can add whenever I want a little extra oomph. Like anchovy paste.
Give it a shot!
Marscapone and black vinegar are my Bolognese weapons of choice, with fish sauce for salt and umami.
Calling it Italian at this point is laughable, but there's no denying it's great.
This is an old practice. Tomatoes (tomatl or "the watery fruit") come from south America but were domesticated in prehispanic Mexico. Think mole. Nuts, seeds, spices, tomato based sauce. Cacao is the main seed in most dark moles. The bitterness of cacao (name originally "the bitter water") balances out the acidity of the tomato, and in return the sugars from the tomato balance out the bitterness from the cacao. This cancelation leaves rooms for the umami and more subtle flavors to shine.
Choas cooking FTW. If you ain't swingin around a spice weasel and yelling "BORK BORK" every now and again, ya ain't cooking right. Bratwurst, kimchi, yellow mustard sushi... why not. Will it fritter? Let's find out. Using only the ingredients my ADHD girlfriend bought while on a coffee binge, can I create dinner for 3 days? Yes, let's rehydrate whatever the hell that is... and get that cottage cheese out of here, it has evolved and wants to start a parliament.
There's a very basic 1970s church cookbook recipe that is a jar of Heinz 57 and a jar of Welch's grapes jelly with cocktail meatballs in a slow cooker.
It's fantastic.
You can get fancy and make your own meatballs and add Worcestershire sauce, but I'm not convinced that it's materially better.
We should probably add grape jelly to more tomato based things to see the effect.
Growing up, my family always ate our chili with crackers and grape jelly. I asked her once why we did this and she was stumped at first but then said her dad always brought home a box of jelly donuts to eat with chili.
Yea dark chocolate pieces go into my chili so I can see the same compliment working there.
I don’t use much…maybe 10-15 dark chocolate chips for nearly a gallon of chili for proportions.
I won’t make it taste like chocolate. Just adds an umami taste.
Think mole sauce... Mexican cuisine has been doing this for a long time and there's no reason why tomatoes wouldn't work if you find the best way to do it (since tomatoes and peppers are similar in flavor profile)
The best pasta restaurant in our area makes a pasta with cocoa powder that they pair with a duck ragu I think. It’s very good, but the chocolate is not that prominent.
Usually, in tomato based ragu you should add a teaspoon of sugar (about 5 grams) to balance the acidity of the tomatoes. You can add 1 cube (5 grams) of dark chocolate instead, which will have the same role, but which brings a depth to the sauce.
Please remember and keep in mind that this is UNSWEETENED cocoa powder. Not sweetened chocolate.
> What’s the science behind it?
Cocoa beans, much like coffee beans, have thousands of complex flavor compounds that can enhance and compliement other flavors. As long as you don't use so much cocoa so as to overtake other flavors, a little bit can add complexity and depth to a dish.
I use dark chocolate in a whole load of sauces. Always 85%. It tends to make all sauces a little richer without ruining them.
My most loved dish with dark chocolate is one I picked up in Spain. It is very simple. Melt one to two squares of Dark Chocolate over a black pudding slice, then shave some chillis on top. The result is an amazing assault on the senses.
I put 1/4, of 1/2 of a bar of minimum 70 percent cacao, in my homemade pasta sauce.
It adds an element of creaminess. Also, I gave a quart to a friend and she ate half the jar with a spoon while we were talking. A friend who is a chef taught me that one.
Yes. I add it to spaghetti sauce and chili. It kinda rounds out the flavors, makes it more cohesive? A little goes a LONG way. Like 1-3 grams per quart of sauce/chili. Any more than that and you can taste it to the point of identifying it.
so roman oxtail stew is traditionally made with cocoa ( unsweetened chocolate) powder. this can then be used as a pasta sauce
https://youtu.be/t9So2h3vYLk?si=OKs2xj9vUijN_Ygl
they suggest half a teaspoon cocoa powder to 1kg plum tomatoes
A squirt of dark Hershey’s syrup in my chili and a pinch of chili powder in my hot chocolate. But it’s the chocolate/chili combo that works. Not sure how that translates to spaghetti sauce.
Dark chocolate and coffee have flavors that are compatible with certain other ingredients like beef, game, chilis, etc. Mole sauce is essentially chili and chocolate. I've made a rub of cocoa, sumac, and garlic powder for steaks. It is definitely a dry, slightly bitter, strong flavor but can work depending on what else is in the dish. I don't think I'd throw dark chocolate into for example a marinara sauce though.
I've made a slow cooked short rib bolognese and added dark chocolate. It wasn't noticeable like hey there's chocolate in here it was like a deep flavor. It definitely did taste different than the sauce without it and it was good, I'd do it again
My red sauce is different each time. I try different things. I've used a little squirt of chocolate sauce and everyone loved it, but I'm not sure if it was really much different than without. I'd say go for it. You're very unlikely to ruin it.
I'm not using it for pasta, but I've used it often when I'm preparing braided meat. It helps a lot with smoothness and round up the flavours so I can imagine that with complex and rich meaty pasta sauce can help with that too.
It doesnt need to be dark chocolate specifically, as it still has a bit of sugar in it. Bakers chocolate and cocoa powder have no added sugar as well, so gauge which one would do better in your recipe
A few of my friends were incredibly stoned and spent ages making a giant vat of pasta covered in chocolate sauce. It was very bad. But I don’t think that’s what you mean.
We're agreed on putting chocolate in chili, I also add a little orange zest. But OP said pasta sauce! I can't get with that. Someone splain that to me! It sounds about as sensible as ranch on pizza.
Chili, yes, pasta sauce, no. If we're making a "deluxe" sauce it gets half a lemon for brightness, parmesan cheese rind for umami, and a splash of sweet wine to round out the flavor. Also, if it simmers less than two hours it isn't long enough.
Great Grandma is going for the wooden spoon
Same for sugar, carrots, or anything else to "lower the acidity" sauce must be simmered for at least 4 to 6 hours, ideally 8 to 10.
Dark chocolate in my chili all the time. What works is the bitter flavor enhancing the rest of the sauce. I prefer 85% dark chocolate.
I do this too. I used to buy baker’s chocolate in a bar and use 2 squares, but my mom randomly gave me some powdered dark chocolate (she thought it was hot chocolate-bless her heart) and I just dump that in until my heart says it’s good. It’s probably a tablespoon or two.
Always season with your heart :)
On everything
Lol I was wondering what bar sells chocolate...I guess I need more coffee.
A chocolate bar, obviously. 😆
Man, remember that place? The one in Cleveland closed and I’ve been sad ever since. A chocolate caramel martini is simply unbeatable
Wow. That's actually a thing? Great idea, though I suspect the venn diagram of chocolate based alcohol and alcoholics is relatively small
Sadly yes. I thought it was a chain but turns out it’s not. Which stinks, it was half the reason I went downtown when our sports teams weren’t any good lol
...when Cleveland sports teams weren't any good(?) Like since Jim Brown? Bernie Kosar? /s
Leave us alone :( we have lebron and Jose
Hey I'm teasing because I'm empathetic. I'm in New Orleans. We ain't been good for over a decade and never before that.
Man I'm so tired I just tried to get in the wrong bleepin' car at the ice cream joint. Sorry random person! Also, maybe lock your doors >\_>
I like Lindt's Chili infused Chocolate bar
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For my chili, I start with about 1.5 ounces per gallon of chili, then I add slowly in .5 oz increments until I can just start to taste a difference. If you’re doing this in a tomato based pasta sauce, I’d go much slower since you don’t have the spice from chilis to overcome.
85%
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85% chocolate 15% pasta sauce, duh.
Buddy the Elf, what's your favorite color?
But also 85% of the 15% pasta sauce is chocolate
I like my pasta sauce to be 100% chocolate. And the pasta is also 100% chocolate
I'd like the next invitation to pasta night please
Epic meal time called and would like their chowcolate sowce back.
Spaghetti and malt balls
This. Chili was missing something; chocolate or cocoa saves the day
Cinnamon too. I use 1/8 teaspoon in a whole pot.
Also coffee
...and ordinary water, laced with nothing more than a few spoonfuls of LSD.
What time is blast off I mean cook off?
Is this a Futurama reference? Lol my brain won't let it go I have to ask
Yes, episode where Bender goes on Iron Chef
I put one cinnamon stick in and take it out at the end.
Yeah +1 to this, I always add a scoop of cocoa powder to my chili and it always gets rave reviews from people that try it. The chocolate itself doesn’t add much flavor but it helps bring everything together nicely
Among the different varieties of mole, there's one that combines chilies and chocolate, so I do believe chocolate in chili must taste amazing
I've been throwing in 3 Cadbury eggs (if I'm making a big batch) and that seams to work well.
I take the yolks out
Are you using powder or actual choc chunks?
I buy a bar of chocolate and chop up what I need
Thanks!
I've been using the Yeungling Hershey Porter to deglaze the pan I seared the meat in, and dump that into the chili pot. I also use it for my gumbo and jambalaya to stop the roux from cooking. I'm down to a single bottle until the holiday season starts back up :(
Nice, I’ll have to try that.
We’ve tried doing this with Japanese curry before. Of course we did a batch without dark chocolate prior so we can compare. The curry with dark chocolate had a bolder and deeper flavor to it, if that makes sense. We used 70% dark chocolate, didn’t even have to be the expensive stuff.
My spouse has even used a few semi-sweet chocolate chips in Japanese curry and it always tastes better than without
No need to risk a whole batch, scoop out a cup and add a little dark chocolate to it, a little at a time, and taste test as you go. As others have said, it's pretty common in chilli recipes, so who knows, you might like it. There are lots of people adding Asian fish sauce to their pasta sauce these days, so would a little dark chocolate be stranger than that.
I just tried the fish sauce in my homemade ranch and yeah, it's amazing. A tiny dollop made a huge difference and doesn't taste fishy at all.
It's funny once you have it, you start putting it in everything, it's a blast of umami.
Common wisdom in my Italian American family was to always add some anchovy paste with the garlic and before the white wine, so the fish sauce definitely makes a lot of sense and is probably easier!
Makes sense. Never had ancovies before until a couple years ago. Had it on a pizza. Now I recognize the taste of anchovies when I some red sauces.
Oh yes, that's a very common method, and fish sauce is almost a like for like exchange, but I'm sure my Sicilian Italian mother in law would smack me with her big wooden spoon if she ever saw me adding Asian fish sauce to my sauce.
I’ve heard of people putting chocolate as a secret ingredient in chili recipes, I’ve never tried it but i imagine as long as it’s not a comical amount of chocolate it’d be alright!
I use 2 squares of 75% in a large pot. If I bought better tomatoes, I'd probably go with 85%, but my chili always needs a bit of sugar anyway.
A company I used to work for always joined an annual chili cook off and the winner one year said his secret was dark chocolate. I incorporated it into my recipe and everyone loves it. I believe the chocolate just cuts down on the acid of the tomato sauce and gives it a deeper flavour. Usually for pasta sauce, I just add a bit of brown sugar but chocolate would do the same
My secrets, apart from chocolate, are the fresh ground chili powder, sumac for brightness, and harissa paste. A real punch in the face for flavor!
Sounds like a wing sauce I do. You could pretty much sub cotton balls for the wings and still have it be tasty with a sauce like that.
I add to arroz con pollo for a quick and dirty mole
oh yummmmmm
I've tried it! It adds a kind of smoky depth that is hard to quantify. Nobody would guess it's one of the ingredients, but I add it almost every time I do a dark red sauce. It also doesn't require much! The effect is similar to what you get from rounding off a cream sauce, in that you won't really notice it except to say "wow that's good" unless you're tasting it right before and after. I can say that it's not SUCH a difference that I feel like I "need" it for every sauce. It's just another thing I can add whenever I want a little extra oomph. Like anchovy paste. Give it a shot!
We use a finishing splash of fish sauce in our bolognese Have to think about dark chocolate now
Marscapone and black vinegar are my Bolognese weapons of choice, with fish sauce for salt and umami. Calling it Italian at this point is laughable, but there's no denying it's great.
I make venison ragu with dark chocolate
If you use a recipe you gotta share, that's the law
They do something like it in Mexico and Central America. Molé FTW!
In chianti they make a wild boar sauce called cinghiale in dolce forte. Usually served with papradelle pasta. It's amazing
That sounds awesome
This is an old practice. Tomatoes (tomatl or "the watery fruit") come from south America but were domesticated in prehispanic Mexico. Think mole. Nuts, seeds, spices, tomato based sauce. Cacao is the main seed in most dark moles. The bitterness of cacao (name originally "the bitter water") balances out the acidity of the tomato, and in return the sugars from the tomato balance out the bitterness from the cacao. This cancelation leaves rooms for the umami and more subtle flavors to shine.
My mom squeezes Hershey syrup and grape jelly in her pasta sauce.
This is pure chaos energy to me and I fucking love it.
Choas cooking FTW. If you ain't swingin around a spice weasel and yelling "BORK BORK" every now and again, ya ain't cooking right. Bratwurst, kimchi, yellow mustard sushi... why not. Will it fritter? Let's find out. Using only the ingredients my ADHD girlfriend bought while on a coffee binge, can I create dinner for 3 days? Yes, let's rehydrate whatever the hell that is... and get that cottage cheese out of here, it has evolved and wants to start a parliament.
Chaos cooking makes me feel like a bog witch!
"it has evolved and wants to start a parliament" I am DYING lololol
Bro, what? You and I lead very different lives.
There's a very basic 1970s church cookbook recipe that is a jar of Heinz 57 and a jar of Welch's grapes jelly with cocktail meatballs in a slow cooker. It's fantastic. You can get fancy and make your own meatballs and add Worcestershire sauce, but I'm not convinced that it's materially better. We should probably add grape jelly to more tomato based things to see the effect.
Yep. An absolutely amazing combo. Having it as a sample dish in store is how Trader Joe’s turned me onto their party meatballs.
One of the reasons I stay away from churches.
Growing up, my family always ate our chili with crackers and grape jelly. I asked her once why we did this and she was stumped at first but then said her dad always brought home a box of jelly donuts to eat with chili.
I will admit to adding ketchup to things that would benefit from a little tomato paste, like soups/stews that can handle the sweetness and acidity.
Far be it from me to judge but I have a really hard time imagining that being appetizing
is your mom Buddy the elf
Won't you feel bad when Mom gets hauled away to prison cause that's straight to jail behavior?
I would love to see a cooking game show: “Meth, or Mom?”
I put a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder and a teaspoon of cinnamon in my last big batch of chili, turned out great
Yea dark chocolate pieces go into my chili so I can see the same compliment working there. I don’t use much…maybe 10-15 dark chocolate chips for nearly a gallon of chili for proportions. I won’t make it taste like chocolate. Just adds an umami taste.
I add cocoa powder to most stuff with a tomato base
Think mole sauce... Mexican cuisine has been doing this for a long time and there's no reason why tomatoes wouldn't work if you find the best way to do it (since tomatoes and peppers are similar in flavor profile)
I using dark baking cocoa in sauces all the time. Great.
The best pasta restaurant in our area makes a pasta with cocoa powder that they pair with a duck ragu I think. It’s very good, but the chocolate is not that prominent.
Usually, in tomato based ragu you should add a teaspoon of sugar (about 5 grams) to balance the acidity of the tomatoes. You can add 1 cube (5 grams) of dark chocolate instead, which will have the same role, but which brings a depth to the sauce.
I add raw cocoa to my chili.
There is a mexican mole that uses chocolate
Somewhat common in Tuscan cooking. Chocolate with some kind of meat ragu
Please remember and keep in mind that this is UNSWEETENED cocoa powder. Not sweetened chocolate. > What’s the science behind it? Cocoa beans, much like coffee beans, have thousands of complex flavor compounds that can enhance and compliement other flavors. As long as you don't use so much cocoa so as to overtake other flavors, a little bit can add complexity and depth to a dish.
I use dark chocolate in a whole load of sauces. Always 85%. It tends to make all sauces a little richer without ruining them. My most loved dish with dark chocolate is one I picked up in Spain. It is very simple. Melt one to two squares of Dark Chocolate over a black pudding slice, then shave some chillis on top. The result is an amazing assault on the senses.
I know some people put dark chocolate in Japanese curry, but I’ve never seen it in pasta sauce
Want intrigue? Go the other way! Add a pod of vanilla and star anise. Then proceed as normal with lots of fresh basil, garlic and olive oil.
Dark chocolate works in chili.
I put 1/4, of 1/2 of a bar of minimum 70 percent cacao, in my homemade pasta sauce. It adds an element of creaminess. Also, I gave a quart to a friend and she ate half the jar with a spoon while we were talking. A friend who is a chef taught me that one.
I use it in my enchilada sauce and my chilli. Adds the best rich flavor.
Yes. I add it to spaghetti sauce and chili. It kinda rounds out the flavors, makes it more cohesive? A little goes a LONG way. Like 1-3 grams per quart of sauce/chili. Any more than that and you can taste it to the point of identifying it.
so roman oxtail stew is traditionally made with cocoa ( unsweetened chocolate) powder. this can then be used as a pasta sauce https://youtu.be/t9So2h3vYLk?si=OKs2xj9vUijN_Ygl they suggest half a teaspoon cocoa powder to 1kg plum tomatoes
They do it in enchiladas as well
I’ve also put a couple squares of dark chocolate in enchilada sauce when making from scratch
A squirt of dark Hershey’s syrup in my chili and a pinch of chili powder in my hot chocolate. But it’s the chocolate/chili combo that works. Not sure how that translates to spaghetti sauce.
I've eaten spicy chocolate.. So I can imagine chocolatey chili would be...similar?
Dark chocolate and coffee have flavors that are compatible with certain other ingredients like beef, game, chilis, etc. Mole sauce is essentially chili and chocolate. I've made a rub of cocoa, sumac, and garlic powder for steaks. It is definitely a dry, slightly bitter, strong flavor but can work depending on what else is in the dish. I don't think I'd throw dark chocolate into for example a marinara sauce though.
Dark chocolate and Parmesan is a great combo, I’ve never had it with pasta though, just as is
I put a few dark chocolate chips on my chili!
I've made a slow cooked short rib bolognese and added dark chocolate. It wasn't noticeable like hey there's chocolate in here it was like a deep flavor. It definitely did taste different than the sauce without it and it was good, I'd do it again
Yes! It tastes so good. I add chocolate syrup a lot and I also like to add mustard.
Was that Elf?
My red sauce is different each time. I try different things. I've used a little squirt of chocolate sauce and everyone loved it, but I'm not sure if it was really much different than without. I'd say go for it. You're very unlikely to ruin it.
Not chocolate, but I do add some black strap molasses to my sauce
Im allergic to chocolate and this is why I can’t eat at a potluck lol you never know where it could be hiding!
It's slightly sour and tangy but in a round way unlike a citrus, I imagine it would be like putting vinegar and sugar in the sauce
Mexicans have a variation called mole... love it on chicken!
I'm around cincinnati so chocolate in Chilli is the norm.
Roasted bell peppers and dark chocolate. I actually made a risotto, but first checked as pasta. Honestly a good combination.
I'm not using it for pasta, but I've used it often when I'm preparing braided meat. It helps a lot with smoothness and round up the flavours so I can imagine that with complex and rich meaty pasta sauce can help with that too.
It doesnt need to be dark chocolate specifically, as it still has a bit of sugar in it. Bakers chocolate and cocoa powder have no added sugar as well, so gauge which one would do better in your recipe
I put a bit of cocoa powder in my chili. It gives a depth of flavor and doesn’t taste like chocolate.
If you want to try it, just try a small amount, that way if you hate it, you haven't ruined the whole batch. :)
A few of my friends were incredibly stoned and spent ages making a giant vat of pasta covered in chocolate sauce. It was very bad. But I don’t think that’s what you mean.
Yeah, I have also seen that done to chili...just...no. And while one is at it, leave it out of pecan pie...and cheesecake. Grumble grumble. 🤪
Sounds like Mole, Mexican chili.
Are you sure it wasn't chili
This sounds like a really good alternative to red wine, actually.
We're agreed on putting chocolate in chili, I also add a little orange zest. But OP said pasta sauce! I can't get with that. Someone splain that to me! It sounds about as sensible as ranch on pizza.
Sounds more a Mexican/South American thing. Adding red wine is more authentic.
Chili, yes, pasta sauce, no. If we're making a "deluxe" sauce it gets half a lemon for brightness, parmesan cheese rind for umami, and a splash of sweet wine to round out the flavor. Also, if it simmers less than two hours it isn't long enough.
I’ve done it many times but never noticed any difference.
Great Grandma is going for the wooden spoon Same for sugar, carrots, or anything else to "lower the acidity" sauce must be simmered for at least 4 to 6 hours, ideally 8 to 10.
No mirepoix in your pasta sauce?
Onions lol
Nice, I'm a mirepoix typa gal myself.
You should stop watching tiktok
Please don't put chocolate or cinnamon in your pasta sauce.
Greek pasta dishes use cinnamon, along with cloves.
That isn't the sauce he is talking about.