How to Make Hot Chocolate

Whether you've been out sledding, building snowmen, or shoveling the walk, we love the idea of warming up with a cup of hot chocolate. Cocoa mix is fine in a pinch, but we're prepared to go all out for a special treat.

While hot chocolate has only a brief list of ingredients, the quality of those ingredients and how you combine them are what elevates hot chocolate to a heavenly concoction. Read on for some expert tips on how to make the most of milk and chocolate when you put them together for hot chocolate. 

Hot Chocolate Tips: Milk

Of the two primary ingredients in hot chocolate, milk is the less complicated one, so we’ll tackle it first. You likely have a preference where it comes to the milk in your lattes or cappuccinos; you’ll probably have a preference with your hot chocolate too.

The type of milk in hot chocolate recipes varies. Ree Drummond’s recipe on Food Network is quite decadent, calling for equal parts milk and half and half. Buzzfeed offers a long list of tips for hot chocolate, and they recommend whole milk because “skim is sad; cream is overkill.” We tend to agree.

However, Food52 cautions that no matter how rich the milk is that you use, make sure it’s high quality. If you’ve chosen high-quality chocolate, you can get by with lower-fat milk — and in fact, you may prefer it. The quality of the milk does matter, but chocolate is the star of the show.

Hot Chocolate Tips: Chocolate

Speaking of chocolate, there are multiple schools of thought as to what form your chocolate ought to take. It boils down to personal preference, but we’ll cover the options so you can make an informed decision.

We’re big fans of BA’s Best — the series of all the very best essential recipes on Bon Appetit. But their hot chocolate recipe may be a tad controversial, as it uses both cocoa powder and chopped chocolate. Other sources, like Fifteen Spatulas and Buzzfeed, are opposed to cocoa powder. It doesn’t always dissolve smoothly, and it doesn’t contain cocoa butter, making it less rich than actual chocolate.

Ree Drummond’s recipe calls for chocolate chips, which makes us hesitant too. As we mentioned in our post on chocolate bark, chips are made with stabilizers to help them keep their shape. They aren’t made for melting. In fact, Ree’s recipe notes that bits of solid chocolate will remain in your hot chocolate. If you prefer those bits instead of smooth hot chocolate, go ahead and use chocolate chips. But if you want pure melted chocolate, the majority of our sources recommend chopping solid chocolate bars as finely as possible. Fifteen Spatulas even advocates for melting the chocolate in the microwave and then whisking it into your hot milk.

What type of chocolate should you use, and how much is necessary? We love Food52’s answer: Eat a lot of chocolate until you find one you love. Then use that one.

If you’re hesitant to go hog wild on chocolate bars, start by looking at the cocoa percentages. As a general rule, Food52 recommends staying between 60% and 80%. They also advise mixing in a little milk chocolate to sweeten your recipe, rather than adding sugar, and we concur. In short, the chocolate you use for hot chocolate should be just as good as the chocolate you’d eat on its own.

Finally, you’ll be reassured to know that Food52 believes there’s no such thing as too much chocolate in hot chocolate. But if you want some specific guidance, Buzzfeed suggests a ratio of two ounces of chocolate for every cup of milk.

Hot Chocolate Tips: Extras

You truly don’t need to add anything else to your hot chocolate, but we’re intrigued enough by this suggestion from Buzzfeed that we want to try it. To thicken your hot chocolate and make it even creamier (without using heavy cream), add a bit of cornstarch. Whisk the cornstarch into cold milk, and then add that to the hot chocolate mixture.

If this idea doesn’t appeal, but you can’t help wanting to doctor your hot chocolate a bit, you can add a pinch of salt or a dash of vanilla extract. We also like Buzzfeed’s addition of espresso powder, which helps boost the chocolate flavor.