Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chips and other assorted baking morsels have been around since what feels like the beginning of time. In reality, it hasn’t been that long but for as long as I can remember both my mother and grandmother would only use Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chips in their chocolate chip cookies. When I started a more vegan lifestyle, I traded my longtime love affair with Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chips for vegan varieties such as Enjoy Life brand. But then, not that long ago, I noticed the Nestle Simple Delicious dark chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate morsels. The Dark Chocolate and Semi-Sweet morsels are surprisingly vegan and also free of the top 8 allergens including tree nuts, peanuts, egg, milk, wheat, soy, fish and shellfish. What’s even more impressive from Nestle is that each bag is made with USDA organic cane sugar, chocolate, and cocoa butter (that’s it!). That’s fewer ingredients than most vegan varieties so I knew I’d definitely have to give them a try to see not only how the vegan chocolate chips tasted but also I was curious…how do they hold up in baking and melting?? Keep reading my review as a plant-based dietitian or hop over to Amazon and check out Nestle Simply Delicious Chocolate Chip Dark Chocolate and Semi-Sweet Chocolate morsels for yourself.
Taste Experience
Immediately when opening the Nestle Simply Delicious chocolate chips, I’m surprised at how rich and decadent they smell! Most of the time chocolate chips hardly smell at all – and if they do it’s definitely not as rich and chocolately as these smell and also look. They are a deep dark chocolate brown with a uniform shape and consistency. There’s none of those little white marks that can appear on chocolate after it has aged or been exposed to a lot of air.
I grab a couple morsels and my initial reaction when they hit my tongue was…”OMGosh, these are good!” The vegan dark chocolate chip morsels from Nestle are just as rich and decadent as they smelled and unlike some dark chocolates, these morsels are not bitter in the slightest. They are super smooth in both texture and taste.
I decided to bake with them next. I was already making pumpkin bread and pumpkin muffins so I added the vegan Nestle Simply Delicious Dark Chocolate Morsels to the muffins. During the baking process, they got soft but never melted into a bit chocolate mess, they stuck to their morsel shape. Trialing the muffins after baking, I will say that I can’t really tell a difference between these chocolate chips and other brands I’ve used. If anything, the dark chocolate chips provide more of that dark chocolate goodness and pack in more overall flavor than some other varieties I’ve used before.
Next, I melted a tablespoon or so of the vegan Nestle Simply Delicious Dark Chocolate Morsels with a tablespoon of peanut butter as a mid afternoon snack dipped with popcorn kernels and 1/2 banana (such a tasty vegan snack!). I put both the chocolate chips and the peanut butter in a small microwavable bowl and heated for 30 seconds before giving it a good stir. The chocolate was mostly melted at this point and I wanted to avoid overheating and scorching the chocolate so I decided to keep it as is.
Overall, the Nestle Simply Delicious Dark Chocolate Morsels taste amazing – rich, dark, and decadent – on their own, in baked goods, or melted and while I still love my usual brand of vegan chocolate chips, I do love that the Nestle option is more widely available including over on Amazon. These chips are perfect for any baking that you may have coming up and you don’t have to worry about milk or unnecessary ingredients being added to them.
Nutrition
One tablespoon of Nestle Simply Delicious Dark Chocolate Morsels contains 80 calories with 5 grams of fat and 3 grams of saturated fat from the organic cocoa butter. This helps provide that smooth mouth feel that you would expect and definitely enjoy from higher quality vegan chocolate chips.
In that same 1 tablespoon serving size of vegan Nestle Simply Delicious Dark Chocolate Morsels, there is no sodium and 45mg naturally containing potassium from the organic chocolate. With only 3 ingredients, you don’t have to worry about added filler ingredients that may contribute to a source of sodium.
There are 8 grams of total carbohydrate with less than 1 gram of fiber and 7 grams of sugar with 7 grams of added sugar. As you would expect from a sweet treat, the chocolate chips do contain added sugar but 7 grams is very modest as most chocolate chips range from 8-10 grams of added sugar per serving. The sugar source is organic cane sugar, meaning that it’s not a refined sugar you find in many chocolate chips and other baked goods and is still going to be a significantly better option.
Again, with only 3 ingredients (organic cane sugar, organic chocolate, and organic cocoa butter), the nutrition label is pretty straightforward. With that being said, it makes sense there is <1 gram of protein as none of these ingredients are a source of protein. However, chocolate is a natural source of iron (bonus, right?!) so in that 1 tablespoon serving of Nestle Simply Delicious Dark Chocolate Morsels, there’s .4mg or 2% of the RDA for iron. Another bonus for any of you vegans and vegetarians out there – chocolate is good for you – helps improve your mood and contains the essential mineral iron! 😉 I would definitely stock up on the vegan Nestle Simply Delicious Dark Chocolate Morsels on Amazon, especially if you live somewhere that doesn’t typically carry smaller brands that are vegan (like Enjoy Life Brands I mentioned earlier). The simplicity of these chocolate chips simply cannot be beat and it’s clear that Nestle chose high quality ingredients for these allergen free but insanely delicious chocolate chips.
Parting Thoughts
Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip and other baking morsels have been around for quite some time but it’s only recently with the explosion of plant-based everything and the desire to go allergen free (including soy free, gluten free, and dairy free) that Nestle has launched their Simply Delicious Dark Chocolate and Simply Delicious Semi-Sweet Morsels. The vegan Simply Delicious Dark Chocolate Morsels are rich and chocolately and taste like high quality bakery chocolate chips (nothing like what I expected). The decadent but smooth taste and texture is perfect to enjoy as the morsels are, melted, or in vegan baked goods that call for chocolate chips. If you are cooking or preparing baked goods for someone with allergies, these Nestle Simply Delicious Dark Chocolate Morsels are free of the top eight allergens (tree nuts, peanuts, egg, milk, wheat, soy, fish and shellfish) plus they only contain 3 ingredients! That means no fillers, additives, or colorings – just pure “simply delicious” vegan chocolate chips that you can find on Amazon to start incorporating into your world ASAP because you won’t be disappointed.
Other Posts You May Enjoy:
5 Accidentally Vegan Chocolate Treats + 5 Healthy Vegan Chocolate Options
Enjoy Life Foods Chocolate Protein Bites Review – Sunseed Butter
Unreal Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Review
6 Vegan Frosting Brands – Is Pillsbury Frosting Vegan? Is Betty Crocker Frosting Vegan?
Duncan Hines Vegan – Duncan Hines Brownie Mix
Real review:
1. They definitely taste different.
2. They look different and are smaller than the regular Dark.
3. They do not melt properly, in fact they burn.
4. They cost $2 more per package and are in a smaller package than regular ones.
5. Did Nestle pay you for this review?