Chocolate is well known for enhancing a few South American dishes such as mole and chilli, but have you tried using it in anything else? Here you’ll find a whole variety of vegetarian savoury chocolate recipes and they all sound delicious.
Chocolate In Savoury Recipes
Although we mostly think of chocolate as a sweet treat, it has rich, bitter and earthy notes that complement or enhance a number of savoury recipes. Think of it more as a flavour enhancer rather than the main event though. You only need very small quantities to add depth and complexity to a dish.
Chocolate is most commonly used with meat, but it works surprisingly well in a number of vegetarian savoury recipes. Cheese is not the most obvious partner to chocolate, but just think how fond we are of chocolate cheesecake? Turn that around and the world of savoury cheese and chocolate dishes is cast wide open.
Mushrooms and beetroot have a particular affinity with chocolate. It must be the similarities in their earthy flavours. However, chocolate is actually a fun ingredient to use with any number of vegetables. It’s also good in bread. Spices that work well in savoury chocolate recipes are: chilli, paprika, allspice cumin, cinnamon, ginger and cloves.
It’s generally best to use a high cacao content dark chocolate in savoury recipes. 100% cacao is often just what you need, but an element of sweetness in say a 70% bar is sometimes more appropriate.
If you fancy making a real feast of some vegetarian savoury chocolate recipes, take a look at my six course chocolate dinner for inspiration. Not all courses were savoury, but it was grand.
We Should Cocoa
Back in the day when the We Should Cocoa chocolate recipe challenge was a thing, I set savoury vegetarian as one of the monthly themes. I knew it was going to be a bit of a tough one and indeed it proved to be so.
There was much shaking of heads and dark mutterings going on in the blogosphere. Suelle even suggested we might just get twenty five versions of veggie chilli. I’m glad to report this was not the case.
It started off with only a few hardened souls brave enough to attempt it. After stating in the rules that only one entry per person per month was allowed, I was so worried at the lack of entries coming in, that I broke the rule – just that once, you understand. Having allowed multiple entries, I was suddenly inundated right at the very end.
So having laid down the gauntlet for something savoury and vegetarian, the #WeShouldCocoa storm troopers came up with any number of imaginative and delicious sounding recipes. We had twenty five entries in total. Not all of them are still here as some of the blogs no longer exist, but I’ve added a few more recent ones. And we now have twenty recipes for you to peruse.
At that time, there was a lot of talk about cheese and chocolate pairing. And as many of the bloggers who tried it attest below, it works remarkably well. I had to try the combination for myself and fell in love. You can find my recipes in this collection of goat’s cheese and chocolate recipes.
Vegetarian Savoury Chocolate Recipes
Twenty delicious vegetarian savoury chocolate recipes are here for your inspiration and delectation. We start with a stunning chocolate pasta dish, but go on to include salads, canapés, mains, snacks and more.
Penne Cocoa Pasta With Mushroom Pasta
My heart nearly missed a beat when I saw this recipe for penne cocoa pasta from Ren Behan. Chocolate pasta? Really? It turns out it is a thing. Ren combines it with a creamy mushroom sauce and it sounds delectable. A great start to this collection of vegetarian savoury chocolate recipes.
Bean Pumpkin Chestnut Chilli
Thankfully Homemade by Fleur was excited by the prospect of using chocolate in a savoury dish. She commenced proceedings with bean, pumpkin and chestnut chilli.I love chilli at the best of times, but this adaptation of Fleur’s using Willie’s 100% chocolate sounds gorgeous.
Chocolate Pecan Crusted Goat’s Cheese
Hungry Hinny adapted a recipe using cocoa nibs to make chocolate and pecan crusted goat’s cheese. Although somewhat dubious to begin with, she enjoyed the challenge and was pleased with the result – hooray!
Pumpkin Muffins With Goats Cheese
Savoury muffins are one of my go to lunch-box fillers. They’re easy to make, delicious and keep well for a few days. These pumpkin and goat’s cheese muffins also contain pumpkin seeds, pumpkin oil and cocoa powder for an additional autumnal boost.
Savoury Goat Cheese Chocolate Canapés
These wonderfully elegant savoury goat cheese and chocolate canapés come from Suelle of Mainly Baking. I bet these would go down a storm at any party – am I invited?
Hot Cheve Beetroot Salad With Chocolate Balsamic Drizzle
Chocolate, goat’s cheese and beetroot must be a winning combination, for it also features atLavender and Lovage with Karen’s hot chevre and beetroot salad with chocolate and vanilla balsamic drizzle. This time complete with beetroot hearts. Is this a new trend emerging perchance?
Slow Cooker Chilli Con Carne
As long as you don’t look at this too closely, you might be able to convince yourself it’s Quorn mince. It’s certainly what Janice of Farmersgirl Kitchen meant to use in this chocolate chilli con carne.
Chocolate Dukkah
Now here’s a clever way of spreading that savoury chocolate love. Include it in this Egyptian Dukkah recipe and you can sprinkle it over just about everything. This recipe is from me at Tin and Thyme.
Chocolate Nut Roast
Johanna ofGreen Gourmet Giraffereally pushed the boat out on this one. As a fellow vegetarian, I am a huge admirer of the inventiveness of Johanna’s food and I would so love to have been invited along for dinner when she made this Mexican inspiredchocolate nut roast with chocolate gravy.
Goat’s Cheese & Chocolate Salad
Lured in by the chocolate and cheese theme,Foodycathas submitted one of her not to be missed Meat Free Monday recipes. Made with a chocolate balsamic reduction, thisgoat’s cheese and chocolate saladsounds so very delicious, I hope this won’t be Foodycat’s first and only WSC entry.
No-Knead Cocoa Spelt Loaf
Cocoa works really well in bread. It gives it a certain depth of flavour, which isn’t obviously chocolate, but does enhance the bread. This is especially so when combined with molasses in this no-knead spelt bread from me at Tin and Thyme.
Roasted Butternut Squash And Black Bean Mole
Having missed out on trying Mole when Laura of How to cook Good Food visited Mexico she decide to make her own with thisroasted butternut squash and black bean mole.
Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie
Normally I use lentils in my shepherd’s pie, but I’d never tried it with chocolate too. I’m glad to report that it goes superbly in this chocolate vegetarian shepherd’s pie. I’ve never looked back.
Pepper Almond chocolate Dip
Another scrummy dip. This time from Phil of As Strong As Soup who always comes up with something interesting. This time he brings us this vibrant pepper dip with almonds and chocolate.
Chocolate Cheese Twists
Baking Addict Ros really struggled with this challenge, but she was not to be defeated and came up with these very tasty looking chocolate and cheese twists.
Apple And White Chocolate Salad
I knew Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe would have no problem with this challenge. She’s already produced a number of chocolate savoury veggie dishes. This time she came up with something uber original –green apple and white chocolate salad.
Caramelised Cocoa Onion Gravy
Dom of Belleau Kitchen was desperate for meat, so he very cleverly came up with something he could eat and that I too could partake of. I give you his chocolate roast pork belly with a caramelised cocoa and onion gravy and he’s right, I want some.
Mushroom And Stilton Tarte Tatin
I suspect Hannah of Corner Cottage Bakery will forever remember her mushroom & stilton tatin with a chocolate and port sauce. Half way through preparing this, she was rushed to A&E having sliced the tip of her finger off! Despite this, or maybe because of it, she reckoned this dish was a success. It certainly looks like one to me.
Chilli Chocolate Salsa
After all the sweet treats, it’s something of a relief to have a savoury entry from Shaheen of A2K – A Seasonal Veg Table. She decided to serve some potato wedges and veggie meatballs with a “devilishly rich” chilli chocolate salsa. I’m game!
Cocoa Jerk Tofu
For something completely different, we have savoury cocoa jerk tofu from Johanna at Green Gourmet Giraffe. The spicy Caribbean marinade has my name all over it and I shall be losing no time in trying this out.
Keep in Touch
Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. I hope you enjoyed this collection of vegetarian savoury chocolate recipes. Are you inspired to try any of them? If so, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any favourite veggie chocolate recipes?
Please rate the recipe. If you post pictures of your creations on social media, use the hashtag #tinandthyme so I can see them.
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If you’d like moresavoury chocolate recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a few. All delicious and nutritious, of course.
Choclette x
Vegetarian Savoury Chocolate Recipes: Update 2023
I originally published this post as a collection of vegetarian savoury chocolate recipes forWe Should Cocoa. Now I’ve updated it to make it more useful. I’ve removed dead posts, improved images, added titles, more information and some new recipes.
