These chocolate covered cashews are the best no bake treat! Made with 4 simple ingredients and 15 minutes of prep! Perfect for a healthy snack/dessert, adding to holiday charcuterie boards, and gifting.
Satisfy your sweet tooth with these chocolate covered cashew clusters! These easy recipes combines roasted cashews with smooth decedent chocolate, and sea salt. Treat yourself to healthier dessert option when you are craving something sweet.
December rolls around each year and candy and baked goods are everywhere! While I love indulging, I also like having some better-for-you recipes to make, like my macaroons without condensed milk, dark chocolate bark, vegan turtles, and, almond flour biscotti, and healthy chocolate peanut butter balls.
While these are perfect around the holidays, don't forget they make a delicious treat all year round!
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Why You'll Love This Recipe
- Sweet & salty: For you all you sweet and salty lovers out there, these cashew clusters combine the both of best worlds.
- Makes a fun and tasty homemade gift: These clusters are perfect for sharing around the holidays.
- Contains nutrients: Cashews are known for containing healthy fats, fiber, protein and essential vitamins and minerals. And if you use a good quality dark chocolate, you are also getting the benefits of antioxidants.
Ingredients Notes
- Roasted cashews - These are honestly so much better with roasted cashews. Roasting the cashews brings out the flavor of the cashews and adds a nice crunch (raw cashews are much softer). That said, if you don't have time to roast your cashews, you can use raw or buy already roasted (unsalted) cashews.
- Sea salt - I recommend coarse sea salt or sea salt flakes, don't use regular table salt.
- Chocolate - Semi-sweet or dark chocolate work best.
Clean food tip: Cashews (as with most nuts) are sprayed with synthetic chemicals (like pesticides), which can be harmful to our health. I recommend organic cashews.
Clean food tip: Chocolate should contain sugar, chocolate, and cocoa butter. My favorite brands include Equal Exchange, Hu Chocolate, and Pascha.
A complete list of ingredients and amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
Variations and Substitutions
To make vegan, ensure you are using dairy-free chocolate.
To make Paleo, use a Paleo compliant chocolate, such as Hu Chocolate Gems.
You can use this recipe for any chocolate covered nuts. Feel free to swap the cashews for almonds, peanuts, walnuts, or pecans.
For you coconut lovers, you could add some coconut flakes in with the melted chocolate or sprinkle shredded coconut on top.
And for you spice lovers, you could mix in a pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg, or cayenned pepper.
How to Make Chocolate Covered Cashews
Follow along with these easy steps to make your chocolate cashews.
Step 1: Slowly melt chocolate and coconut oil over low heat. Remove from heat and add cashews. Mix until cashews are coated in chocolate.
Step 2: Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Drop clusters of cashews (6-7 cashews per cluster) onto baking sheet.
Step 3: Allow clusters to sit for about 10 minutes and then sprinkle with sea salt. Allowing chocolate to set prevents the salt from sinking into the chocolate.
Step 4: Allow clusters to sit at room temperature so chocolate can set.
TIP FOR MELTING CHOCOLATE:
Stove top: If melting on the stove, melt over low heat until about ¾ of the chocolate has melted and then remove pan from heat. Stir constantly until remaining pieces have melted.
Microwave: Microwave for 1-minute and then continue microwaving in 30-second internals, stirring in between, until ¾ of the chocolate has melted. Stop microwaving at that point and stir chocolate until remaining pieces have melted.
Expert Tips
Use good quality chocolate without a bunch of added oils and preservatives. These don't melt as well and won't yield the best results.
When melting the chocolate, remove chocolate from heat when some small pieces remain. Stir chocolate continuously until remaining pieces have melted. This ensures the chocolate won't burn and helps with texture when setting.
Allow chocolate to set slightly before sprinkling with sea salt (about 15 minutes). This will help the sea salt to sit nicely on top and not sink into the chocolate.
For easy gifting, or to help form the clusters, make these in cupcake liners (mini or regular size).
For a bit-sized treat, make the clusters small with 2-3 cashews per cluster.
How to Store
Room temp: These are best kept in an air-tight container at room temperature and will stay fresh for one week. If you are in a warmer climate, you may want to store them in the fridge. If layering, place pieces of parchment paper between each layer.
Freezing: While I don't recommend freezing as you run the risk of blooming (when the fat from the chocolate rises to the top and you're left with little white bubbles in the chocolate), can freeze them for up to 3 months.
Recipe FAQs
Yes, you for sure can. I like how roasting cashews bring out the flavor of the cashews and adds more crunch, but you can definitely use raw cashews as opposed to roasted.
As I always say, "healthy" is a subjective term. I truly believe these to be a clean eating snack/dessert and are a great option when looking for something sweet! And cashews are definitely a good choice when it comes to snacking.
I'm all about ease and slowly melting (as I have written in my directions) seems to work great, but if you'd like to temper your chocolate, follow these directions for tempered chocolate.
If you store these in the refrigerator, your chocolate may "bloom" which is when the fat from the chocolate rises to the surface and creates little white bubbles. This is completely harmless and is still safe to eat.
More Chocolate Recipes
If you make this recipe, please let me know what you think! I would so appreciate you leaving a star rating and/or comment below. And don't forget to share a photo on Instagram or Facebook and mention @CleanPlateMama!
Eat Clean.Be Well!
-Sara
Chocolate Covered Cashews
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Equipment
- 1 Baking sheet
- 1 saucepan
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups roasted cashews (see notes)
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips or chopped chocolate bar (see notes)
- 1 tsp. coconut oil
- coarse sea salt (or sea salt flakes)
Instructions
- Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a small sauce pan over low heat, melt the chocolate and coconut oil. Once chocolate begins to melt, stir until about ¾ of chocolate is melted and then remove from heat. Continue stirring chocolate until remaining pieces have melted.
- Add the cashews to the melted chocolate and mix until combined.
- Using a large spoon, drop clusters of cashews onto prepared baking sheet. I usually use about 6-7 cashews per cluster.
- Let chocolate set for 10 minutes and then top each cluster with a sprinkle of sea salt.
- Allow chocolate to fully harden before storing. Store in an airtight container at room temp.
Notes
- I highly recommend roasted cashews as they add a nice crunch and roasting them brings out the flavor of the cashews. That said, raw cashews can be used as well.
- The higher quality chocolate, the better these will turn out. I don't recommend milk chocolate. Semi-sweet or dark is best.
- Drizzle any extra melted chocolate left in the pan over the finished clusters.
- Chocolate cashews are best within 1 week.
Nutrition
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