Chocolate Covered Cherries:
This chocolate covered cherries recipe is so easy I seriously considered not even posting it…
However, I receive requests from readers every day who ask if I can post more easy recipes—recipes that can be made without an oven, without a blender or food processor, recipes that don’t take all day to prepare and that don’t require a trip to the health food store for some obscure ingredient.
This is one of those easy recipes!
The recipe is perfect if you have just five minutes and need to come up with a fancy dessert… or if you’re looking for a recipe that takes advantage of cherry season!
The sweet and vibrant cherries make for a stunning final presentation sure to impress your guests—I took about a million photos and had an incredibly difficult time cutting it down to my five favorites. And then I had an equally difficult time stopping myself from eating all the cherries before I could bring them to their destination.
Luckily, the recipe makes a big batch.
An excuse to eat more chocolate covered cherries!
Chocolate Covered Cherries
- 1/4 cup cocoa or cacao powder (20g)
- 1 tbsp liquid sweetener, such as pure maple syrup (15g)
- 1/4 cup melted coconut oil (For a coconut-free version, see directions below) (38g)
- fresh cherries, with stems if possible
Chocolate Covered Cherries Recipe: Line a large plate with parchment paper, and set aside. Combine the liquid coconut oil and sweetener, then stir in the cocoa until a thin sauce forms. (If the sauce turns thick, gently heat it for a few seconds until it becomes thin.) Holding the cherries by the stems or with a spoon, swirl each cherry around in the chocolate. Place on the parchment-lined plate, and immediately refrigerate to set the chocolate shell. Due to the melty nature of the coconut oil, these chocolate covered cherries should be refrigerated until ready to serve. (Chocolate sauce makes enough to coat about 110 cherries.) COCONUT-FREE VERSION: Carefully melt 8 oz chocolate chips with 1 tbsp shortening. (Spectrum brand is non-hydrogenated.) Proceed with the directions above, using this chocolate sauce in place of the coconut-based sauce. This version can stay out at room temperature for a longer period of time, but it’s still a good idea to refrigerate since the fruit is perishable.
Click for: Chocolate Covered Cherries Calories and Nutrition Facts
I’d love your feedback!
Do you prefer when I post quick and easy recipes with just a few ingredients? Or do you like the more-complicated recipes, such as the muffins, pies, and cakes? I will continue to publish a balance of easier and more-involved recipes but will take your feedback into account when deciding how many of each to post!
Link of the Day: Chia Pudding Recipe
Bre & Ree says
Cherries are my favorite summer fruit. I can’t get them here in Barbados, but whenever I visit the states, I always buy a huge bag and eat them all day long! I’m visiting my parents in August so this will be a great easy recipe to try out during my stay. Thanks for sharing!
~Bre
Hollie says
I do like your easy and quick recipes. Some of the more advanced ones I don’t have all the ingredients and items needed to make it.
Chocolate cherries are so good so they are always a win in my book.
Kaira says
I like it when you post recipes that I can make in twenty minutes. They’re not super involved, but a bit more complicated. (And I have no problem with using the food processor or stove.)
Dena says
Hi Katie,
Did you ever post the winner of the Vitamix? I’m still holding onto hope that I will be the ecstatic owner of a new Vitamix 🙂 Oh the things I would blend
Chocolate Covered Katie says
Yes, that post is updated. Winner was Shirley.
Leah @ goodnightcheese says
Looks yummy, but how can 1/2 cup of chocolate sauce, or 8 oz of chocolate chips, be enough to coat over a hundred cherries? That would be about half a gram of sauce per cherry.
Generally I prefer the more complicated or involved recipes that you’ve posted.
Miranda says
Mmm, chocolate and fruit!
I like both the involved recipes, and the easy ones. The fancier ones are good for getting my toddler to eat healthier (healthy pop-tarts, pancakes, muffins, etc.) the others are good for when I want something quick and easy :-).
Jessica says
I love both the really involved and the simple recipes! I always love to try new things but I don’t always have time for the really involved recipes. I love the more complicated recipes because I love spending time in the kitchen. Thanks for all of your recipes Katie!
Lauren says
I like the quick and easy and the recipes that can be cooked in short amounts of time. I’m okay with a stove and blender. It’s the really involved recipes that take hours to make and have obscure ingredients that I shy away from. I have two little boys and a full-time job, so I need things that fit into our schedule. Thanks! 🙂
Jules @ WolfItDown says
Sometimes you just need a little reminder of things that are easy to make up, like these 😀 Thanks for posting, I can imagine they’d be the perfect accompaniment to a cup of coffee or tea, or maybe a glass of red wine 😀 x
Mia (Mia in Germany) says
The easier, the better 🙂 I like sophisticated recipes, too, but easy recipes are so enjoyable during busy days. Just a good little idea to sweeten the day – wonderful!
I’m addicted to cherries and just purchased a pound, so, here I go!
Oh, and I love how you care about your readers and what they’re interested in. Thanks, that’s one of the reasons why I particularly appreciate your site 🙂
Ana says
Personally, I think its time for another boatmeal recipe…
Gail says
We especially appreciate the recipes that we would not be able to figure out how to do ourselves! Like your copycat recipes, and raw cakes, ice creams, brownies, and bars… So, for us, the more involved recipes are the ones we use the most. =)
Lucia says
It’s the creativity that draws me to this chocolate covered corner of internetdom day after day. Four ingredients or fourteen — I don’t care as long as the finished concoction is something I wouldn’t find anywhere else.
Teresa says
My favorite recipes have been for cookies, boatmeal, and the amazing cookie dough dip. So, baked goods would be my favorites, but simple can be quite nice sometimes too. My least favorites are actually the copy-cat recipes. How you define same/similar is vastly different than how I do, so I’m often disappointed by the results. For me texture is often more important than flavor, so if the texture isn’t similar to the original I usually don’t like it much. Please keep sharing your wonderfully creative original creations with us.
Rachel D. says
I would like to see more easy recipes. I’ve made tons of your recipes, and they have all tasted awesome, but I do find myself returning to the easiest ones most (and sometimes not re-making certain ones that require too much time or extra ingredients). Love all your hard work!
Kathleen Pacheco says
I love your quick recipes, and I love cherries! But I’m wondering why you couldn’t just dip the cherries into melted dark chocolate! It would be even quicker, and so delicious!
Love your daily blog!
Kathy
Beth says
I really enjoy your more involved recipes… It’s really awesome to have your blog to turn to when looking for a healthy breakfast or copycat dessert recipe. Knowing you’ve experimented with all the swaps and often even offer substitutions is what keeps me coming back!
Alexis says
I personally prefer the more complicated recipes, like the muffins, pies, and cakes. I love the bread recipes, too. I personally like having more of the baked-good recipes because the quick ones can seem kind of like repeats, if you get what I mean? Anyway, thanks for ALL the great recipes, Katie! 🙂
Angie says
Can u use olive oil?
Katy says
I love easy recipes and I absolutely love chocolate dipped fruit – especially if that fruit has a nice stem to make the whole process even easier!
Nikki @ grab your kicks says
I love quick and easy recipes, especially if I have all the ingredients on hand. Those are the recipes I tend to make over and over. These look delicious!
Caroline says
What a tasty-looking recipe!
I indeed love simple recipes 🙂 But for me, that doesn’t always mean they have to be ‘under-five-minutes’. With ‘simple’ I mean that you don’t have to do things that are likely to go wrong, and that you don’t need expensive/hard-to-get ingredients.
EVA says
I love ya girl, but….I don’t think this is much of a recipe unless you put a lil’ spin on it of some sort. I think people want simple recipes (such as your banana pancakes), but not THIS simple. Just my opinion, though!
I’d like to see more remakes of my childhood favorites, like the gooey and chewy Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies! Or….OR I’d pay to see a PayDay remake if that’s even possible!
I also like your meal ideas. I’m always looking to expand my lunch repertoire, and any ideas are helpful as I’ve become quite uncreative lately.
Amy says
Oooo, oatmeal creme pies!! Yes!!
Jackie says
I love the simple ones!
nuts4knits says
Planning to try this with a 1/2 tsp of almond extract (or dip in ground almonds after the chocolate). Love your seasonal dessert ideas!
Elaine Mazakas says
I love all your recipes but the easy ones are my all-time favorites. When I see other recipes with about 103 Martha Stewart-type steps, my eyes glaze over and I just forget about ever making those.
eribis says
I like both easy and more complicated but my favorite are the ones that use ingredients I already have on hand.
Tara says
I like recipes like this for quick snacks and oatmeal. I would love to see more non-desserty recipes (I know, I know, not chocolate), but seriously, your lentil stew, crock pot roasted veggies, and sloppy joes pretty much changed my life 🙂 Your culinary skills are fab, and as a vegan, I would love to see more of them. Keep up the good work!
P/S: I can hardly wait for oatmeal week!!!! Like so super excited. Bring it on!
The Zen Kat says
I’m so glad you posted this because I LOVE easy recipes. As soon as I saw you talking about almost not posting it, I got excited, because the shorter recipes are my favorite. It also gives us readers more room to add to the recipe and get creative, ya know? These look quite tasty!
Jessica says
There’s a case for each. You have a lot of different readers on your blog. I don’t like rigging up my food processor and I can’t seem to get out of a health food store without spending $100 more than I intended (I love healthy foods; my family not so much). But while I’m all for just a few ingredients, I love to bake!
Teresa says
I personally prefer your slightly more complicated recipes, like muffins, quickbreads, and cookies. However, I’m always happy to see a recipe of yours, no matter what kind, and I also really like your quick and easy recipes. Some of my favorites are the Banana, Pumpkin, ect. Bread in a Bowl cereals!
Carolyn says
The easy, quick ones are sure nice and my favorites and I’m more likely to actually follow through with making them instead of just daydreaming about it ;o) But I still want some of the more complicated ones every now and then too!! You Rock Katie!
Susan says
This sounds absolutely wonderful, and it has occurred to me that this chocolate would be perfect for dipping strawberries or any other fruit. Thank you for posting this.
Amy says
These look great, just the right amount of chocolate. I’ll have to try these now that cherries are in season.
Maria says
I like fancy recipes like pies and cakes!
Marisa says
I love having a combination of easy, throw-it-together recipes as well as more complicated ones. I like being able to throw together something really quickly as a snack for myself, but I’ve also brought plenty of your pies, cupcakes, cookies, and more complicated recipes to parties and cookouts. It might be nice to have a few more quick recipes to choose from though!
Kathy says
I need to try this! But… it’s winter where I live 🙁
I love all your recipes, the easy ones and those more complicated… You’re awesome, Katie!
Tara says
I like both but always come back for recipes like your One Minute Chocolate Cake and Pumpkin Cereal, cookie recipes, and definitely the chocolate mixture in this post.
Once in a while I’ll “treat” myself by setting aside the time and effort to try a more involved recipe!
Katie says
I like the more-than-simple-but-not-too-intense recipes. I’m usually not going to soak dates for 8 hours (I’m just not enough of a planner!), but I like the ones with several ingredients better than the simple ones. Deep dish cookie pie, choc chip cookie dough dip (obviously!), black bean brownies, choc protein bars — the ones where you throw everything in the cuisinart and blend, and then that’s about it (eat straight or bake!). But I love ALL your recipes and am so excited when I receive the next one in my inbox. THANK YOU Katie for working so hard & making great recipes!!
Amy says
OK so… I’m sure this is supposed to be a given but… this same chocolate could be used to dip ANYTHING in, I’m assuming?? (Hubby hates cherries, LOVES fudge-dipped Oreos. And I love chocolate-covered strawberries.)
Chocolate Covered Katie says
Yes!
Medha & Whisk & Shout says
Delicious! I would love to try this with rainier cherries (slightly tarter) and maybe white chocolate or very light milk chocolate to balance out the acidity. These would also be divine dipped in nuts. So many possibilities and lovely pictures. Thanks for sharing!
Brinley says
Hi! I think I like the more complicated cake cupcake recipes. But I also would love to see some more frozen treats like Popsicles, ice cream, maybe even another flavor of dole whip! 😀
Vienna says
Recipes are what draw my attention, not an instructable. Keep doing what you’ve been doing!
Medeja says
Chocolate and cherries is one of the best combinations.. 🙂 irresistibly delicious 🙂
Danielle says
These look fantastic. I get so addicted to cherries in their season! I really love when you post no bake recipes like shakes, smoothies, and ice creams. I’d be ecstatic to see more of those on the blog!
Stephanie Johnson says
Love the simple recipes!
kris says
I prefer the more involved recipes. We are gluten free, dairy free, and low refined sugar and it is very helpful to have so many recipes in one place. I can some up with how to put chocolate on fruit, but I can’t try many different times to get the right proportions of gf flour and sweetener to get a good texture.
Karlie says
I am honestly not a fan of these super simple recipes. I don’t need a recipe to teach me how to dip a cherry into chocolate. It’s self explanatory. I love your muffins, oatmeal, pancake, and all your other recipes though! I actually have your Banana Bread in a Bowl getting all nice and chilly in my refrigerator now.
Jenna says
I personally like shorter and less complicated recipes but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy reading the longer ones. I think its important to have a mix of recipe lengths and difficulties and its nice to make a longer recipe every now and then.
Kris says
These are so adorable! My grandma loves chocolate covered cherries but I never thought I could actually handle making them from scratch! I’ll have to do that for her soon – thanks for posting 🙂 God Bless!
Salpy Kuiper says
I personally like the recipes that require baking or cooking. My favorites are the ones for muffins, breads, pancakes, and waffles. I’ve tried many of your recipes, and I really like them! I am also comfortable substituting some of the ingredients, and everything usually still turns out great. I have a little boy with an egg allergy, so your website comes in handy. Thanks Katie!
Steph says
These look sooo yummy- like an unprocessed cherry ripe bar! It gets your mind thinking about all the other options that can be chocolate covered- well I’m actually having trouble thinking of anything that can’t be chocolate covered! 🙂
Kayla says
This does look wonderful, and easy 🙂 And, c’mon, who doesn’t love chocolate covered cherries?
Lisa @bitesforbabies says
These look divine! There’s something so romantic about these…perfect for my date-night with my hubby tonight (I just bought a bag of fresh cherries this morning!!)
Alexia says
YUM, I am in my village and I’ve just made this with some cherries I’ve just picked of the tree. All my family enjoyed it.
Pd: I am from Spain, can I enter on the cookbook giveaway?
heidi @ a week from thursday says
These look great! I don’t know why I’ve never thought of this, because it’s so easy. I enjoy the quick and easy ones. But all of your recipes look great.
Athletic Avocado says
I love simple, quick and easy posts, but i also enjoy interesting posts as well! just keep doing what your doing! you are amazing!
Therezia says
More complicated ones.
Mariah says
Delicious! I made half with your recipe and then put peppermint oil in the remaining chocolate dip and dipped some bananas. Love easy dessert recipes!
Librarian Lavender says
Those cherries are looking really good! I’ve eaten strawberries this way, but never cherries, great recipe!
Kim says
I love the mix of recipes. Question on this one – even with its simplicity. Why don’t people pit the cherries and then dip them or just fill the center? To me the pit is kind of annoying esp at parties but i’m at a loss the find a recipe that pits the cherries first
Unofficial CCK Helper says
Maybe try frozen cherries? They come already pitted 🙂
Laura says
I love your more involved recipes for the weekends, but simple ones like this are perfect when I need some chocolate RIGHT NOW! 🙂
Cheryl says
I add frozen cherries to the microwaved coconut oil/cocoa powder, shake them around and voila! instant chocolate covered cherries! Also other frozen fruits too!!
Cheryl nevin says
I’m going to make these with my moonshine chocolate cherries
Chrissy says
Hi. I’m actually trying to do low carb so I am wanting the Queen anne cordial cherries would there be any way to make this similar? I know it more carbs than some ppl like but if I can cut it down by making myself. I’m ok 🙂
Jason Sanford says
Yes! I bet these would be similar!