These Hazelnut Chocolate Balls are healthy hazelnut energy balls made with a delicious Ferrero Rocher flavor and made with wholesome ingredients. They are perfect, healthy, clean treats after dinner and great pre-workout energy bites. Bonus, these healthy hazelnut energy balls are also vegan, dairy-free, paleo, refined sugar-free, and gluten-free.
Like This Recipe?
Leave a comment below or head to our Facebook page where I reply to (almost) all comments, our Instagram page for inspiration, or our Pinterest for saving recipes!
Hazelnut Chocolate Balls
Ingredients
- ½ cup Medjool Dates - about 8 dates, 4.7 oz
- 1 cup Hazelnuts
- 1 oz Dark Chocolate - 85% Lindt or vegan dark chocolate chips
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1 tablespoon Coconut Oil - or Cocoa Butter
Optional
- 1 teaspoon Almond Milk - if the dough is too dry
- 10 Hazelnuts - to place in the center of each ball
- 3 oz Dark Chocolate - to drizzle/dip balls
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 320°F (160°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Lay the hazelnuts on the tray.
- Bake for 10 minutes, until fragrant and roasted. Remove from the oven, cool down for 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile, place dark chocolate and coconut oil in a small mixing bowl and melt in the microwave or in a saucepan.
- In the bowl of a food processor, add roasted lukewarm hazelnuts, pitted Medjool dates, vanilla extract melted chocolate/coconut oil.
- Process for 2-3 minutes. The time depends on your food processor's power. You know it's ready when it forms a sticky batter that comes together. If too dry, blend in an extra teaspoon of almond milk or water until the dough sticks together.
- Refrigerate the dough for 10 minutes in a bowl.
- Roll 10 balls, placing a hazelnut in the center of each ball, if desired. See my pictures above to see my technique to do that. Place the formed balls on a plate covered with parchment paper.
- Decorate the energy balls with a drizzle of melted chocolate and extra chopped hazelnuts or serve plain.
Storage
- Store up to 10 days in the fridge in an airtight container.
Nutrition
Ingredients and Substitutions
All you need to make delicious healthy hazelnut protein balls are a food processor and a few ingredients:
- Hazelnuts – Raw or roasted for extra flavors.
- Pitted Medjool Dates – You can also use other types of dates, but Medjool are my favorite for their texture and sweetness.
- Coconut Oil – Since coconut oil is solid at room temperature, it holds the ball together.
- Vanilla Extract – for flavor.
- Melted Dark Chocolate – I love 85% Lindt dark chocolate, but any dark chocolate from 70% cocoa makes this recipe delicious.
How To Make Hazelnut Chocolate Balls (in Pictures)
These hazelnut energy balls are very easy to make.
Decorating The Balls
You can obviously eat these hazelnuts chocolate truffles plain or rolled into:
- Melted dark chocolate to create a crunchy chocolate shell.
- Cacao powder – to look like a holiday truffle, perfect for a vegan Christmas dessert.
- Chopped nuts – roll the balls into chopped peanuts or hazelnuts.
More Energy Balls Recipes
I love to create lots of vegan energy balls for our week. It’s a healthy, clean treat that you can enjoy any time of the day and is also perfect for filling kids’ lunchboxes with nutrient-dense sweet snacks. Below I listed my favorite energy bite recipe for you to try.
These are delicious. I made them as directed. I found them to be excessively oily. I used many paper towels to absorb the oil after I formed them into balls. Perhaps the freshness of the hazelnuts had something to do with it, but next time, I would not use the coconut oil to help melt the chocolate in an effort to lessen the oiliness. Thank you for creating these yummy hazelnut chocolate bites!
Thank you for trying my recipes!
any substitute for hazelnuts?
Any other nuts works like almonds, or cashews.
I love this recipe. I have made it twice and today I am making a DOUBLE batch and I am going to freeze some. It’s healthy a great snack and it tastes great. Easy to make.