This 5 ingredient hot fudge recipe is the perfect topping for your favorite ice cream, brownie or dessert. It’s rich, creamy and full of chocolate flavor. It’s easy to make and can be made in minutes. Plus, it’s much cheaper than buying ready-made hot fudge! It also has simple real ingredients and I promise will blow your mind! It’s 5 ingredients because vanilla & sea salt don’t count in my opinion. The boys went absolutely crazy over it! We hope you do too!

What you need to make this 5 ingredient hot fudge + substitutions:
- Heavy cream- To get rich and thick hot fudge, using heavy cream helps to thicken it and give that fabulous taste. I love heavy cream so much and even put it in my coffee every morning!
- Unsalted butter- You can use salted as well but I usually go for unsalted in baking. If you use salted, no need to change anything.
- Granulated sugar- A classic in any recipe. You can use white sugar, cane sugar, or brown sugar whatever you prefer. I haven’t tested coconut sugar, but I’m sure it would likely work!
- Bitter sweet chocolate- The bittersweet chocolate helps give this fudge a deep, rich, and creamy texture. It really brings out the chocolate flavor and is so good. This is the one I typically buy!
- Cocoa powder- Honestly any cocoa powder will work just fine for this recipe. Regular, dutch, dark, it doesn’t matter. Whatever one you use will just give you a little bit of a different flavor. For example, using dutch will give you a darker and deeper cocoa flavor. This is the cocoa powder I used in this 5 ingredient hot fudge.
- Vanilla extract- No baked good recipe is complete without vanilla extract in my opinion!
- Sea salt- Salt is key in any baked good! Our favorite salt is Redmond Sea Salt and we buy it in bulk. You can use the code daddioskitchen for 15% off.
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Alright, let’s get to making the recipe! Enjoy friends!
5 Ingredient Hot Fudge
Ingredients
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar
- 2 oz chocolate
- ½ cup cocoa sifted
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp sea salt
Instructions
- In a small or medium pot, turn the heat to medium low. Add in the heavy cream and butter. Whisk and melt together.
- Next, pour in the sugar and whisk until it melts as well. Whisk well.
- Turn the heat to low and add in the chocolate. Mix well until chocolate melts.
- Sift in the cocoa powder and sea salt. Mix until. Let simmer for a few minutes and whisk while it thickens a little.
- Remove the pot from the heat and add in the vanilla extract. Mix together & serve warm over your favorite dessert! Makes about 1½ cups of fudge!
This was so delish! We only had dark chocolate chips and they still worked great. Thanks for this easy treat!
Perfect! Good to know the dark chocolate chips worked great!