A healthy Midnight Snack that tastes out of this world! 70% dark chocolate, roasted hazelnuts and a superfood: popped amaranth. Try it once and never have anything else ever again in your life at midnight!
Here goes special credit to my man. He is Mexican and missed his beloved puffed Amaranth a lot so he went on a mission to find it in Montreal.
Nowhere did he find it. Not even our Latin American Store where you tend to find almost all Latin American products. Luckily the health food store had raw amaranth and then all we had to figure out is how to puff amaranth. Which, by the way turns out to be ridiculously easy. Even easier than popping popcorn.
Here is the full tutorial: How to Puff Amaranth.
The best midnight snack of all times
The midnight snack is inspired by the super popular Mexican “alegrías” which are some sort of candy sold in bar form. It is simply puffed amaranth with melted raw sugar and then left to set.
My husband wanted to perfect the recipe though and give it his own spin so he added his favorite treats to the puffed amaranth, nuts, dried fruit and…..chocolate!
When I first tried his experiment I BEGGED him to let me post the recipe on the blog. It’s the first recipe he’s ever developed probably and it’s a keeper for life.
Right before going to bed with often crave something sweet.
Most of the time we just get over it, go to bed and forget about it, but sometimes the craving is stronger than and having a healthy-ish alternative to plain chocolate is actually quite amazing.
Now, let’s stop talking and get into the kitchen to make this out of this world midnight snack so it’s set and finished by midnight ;)
Midnight Snack
Ingredients
- 3.5 oz 70% dark chocolate
- 1/3 cup popped amaranth
- 1/4 cup chopped roasted and peeled hazelnuts
Instructions
- Melt chocolate and mix with popped amaranth and chopped roasted and peeled hazelnuts.
- Add to a parchment paper lined freezer-proof container and spread out evenly.
- Put in the freezer for approximately 15 minutes.
- Take out and cut into pieces.
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Michele says
How many pieces does this make? I can’t see what weight the nutritional info refers to
Thanks
Michele
Lorena Grater says
You can obviously cut it into as many pieces as you want. In the recipe card I suggest 8 pieces and the nutritional information thus is for 1/8th of the whole recipe.
Michèle Martin says
Thanks
Nidhi Choudhary says
Thank you Lorena for sharing this recipe, I made it today with home made chocolate. It was super delicious, absolutely loved it…I also learnt to pop amaranth from your video. Amaranth is a common food here in India, it is mainly consumed during religious fasting…but you introduced a new way of eating this super food regularly… I and my husband are chocolate lovers so this is going to be a regular at my home. My husband loved it too… 😊
Maryann says
Thank you for this super recipe. I used toasted pecans instead. A bit of coconut oil and a teaspoon of vanilla went into the melted chocolate, it made the chocolate thick, but still pliable. I had extra popped amaranth so I press it down into the mix until it was not loose. Yummy!
Kim says
Are there any other nuts that would also work well? Walnuts, pecans, almonds? That’s what I have at home.
Lorena Grater says
Absolutely. Add whatever you desire :)
Alissa says
PSA: don’t add frozen berries into the mix! 😄 the amaranth started freezing before I got it out of the bowl and I wound up with a delicious lumpy bumpy clump. Next time I’ll either defrost the berries or just layer them on top. It was still soooo good!
Lorena Grater says
Ohh noo. I don’t recommend adding fresh berries, only dried. Water doesn’t bind with chocolate.
Cindy says
Labeling food as naughty can encourage a really negative relationship with food. Not something someone who is as health focused as you should be promoting
Lorena Grater says
Thank you for pointing this out. I agree with you. I just changed it.
Dave says
First let me say that ive never been a chocolate lover and although cacao is grown here in the Philippines I am definitely not fond of the local chocolate. However, I thought I’d give these snacks a try as they are easy and are a good alternative to plain popped amaranth. Second, although my wife is a whiz at cooking Filipino food, she is unaware of, or struggles with, some basic cooking know-how unless I help her. For this snack, I forgot to do that (but with a surprise ending).
After getting the task of popping the amaranth just right, she got carried away and ended up with a little over 2/3 cup of popped amaranth. So I told her to just double the chocolate (a mix of white and milk) and nuts (we used pecans) and make a double batch. Then, since I forgot to tell her how to melt chocolate using a double boiler, she just melted it in a saucepot and I think some of it burned. When she mixed everything together it ended up like very coarse beach sand and wouldn’t hold together. She was very upset but I told her it was fine. I then tasted it and… I don’t know if it was the chocolate or if some of the amaranth burned but the taste was out of this world. Now, I actually like some foods burned (e.g., onions, popcorn, toast) so I could understand me liking this concoction, but my overly fussy stepson liked it too. It was placed in a parchment lined plastic container and pressed until it held together and put in the freezer. Although it would still somewhat crumble apart when cutting or biting it, that was okay with me and our son for the 1 day it lasted. Now I’m not sure if I want her to change anything when she makes it again.
Lorena Grater says
Love this so so much! Thank you for sharing :D
Andy Marie says
I am not a pinterrst fan at all. But I stumbled upon your puffed amaranth recipe. And I loved it, i knew it would be easy but didn’t realize HOW easy!
I, like your husband love amaranth and when I moved to the states when I was 12 years old and I couldn’t find frozen yogurt (which is now a thing in the states but had been a thing in Mexico 15 years ago) or amaranth I was devastated. I would have my grandma bring some from mexico when possible and just last week she did again. But I had recently found the raw version at a store the past month but couldn’t purchase it at the time, but now that I’ve found your recipe I won’t be afraid to buy it and puff it myself. Thanks a bunch!
Cheers!
Viva México!
Lorena says
You are very welcome Andy! I’m so happy you like the recipe! Que viva México!
D says
does chocolate need to be tempered?
Lorena says
preferably, yes.
Adrienne says
This looks so good! Will have to try it.
Stacey says
I LOVE this. I had all the ingredients to make except the amaranth, which I found online since I was ordering anyway (found a bag already popped)!
I made a batch with dark chocolate, cashews and cranberries and loved it. Thanks for giving me a quick, delicious recipe that introduced me to a new ingredient!
Lorena says
AMAZING Stacey! I’m so happy you liked it and lucky you for finding it popped already. That saved you a lot of cleaning up, haha.
Sue R says
What dried fruit did your husband use? I don’t see any in the ingredients list and not sure what would go best. Thank. These look wonderful!
Lorena says
We made the same recipe with white chocolate and chopped macadamia nuts and dried cranberries for example. Or the dark chocolate you could make with rum(?) raisins :P and chopped hazelnuts. Chopped up dates or figs sound pretty amazing, too :D
Sue R says
Yes rum and raisins for sure! Oh or the dried figs.. so many ideas so little time :)
Lorena says
I hear you Sue!! I hear you!! The good think is, popping half a cup of Amaranth takes about 10 minutes. Since it’s a little bit messy with the seeds jumping out the pot I usually make like 2 cups in one go and then store the popped Amaranth in an air tight glass container. It lasts a long time like that. Once you just have to grab your popped Amaranth it takes no time at all to make your midnight snack. Start at 11:40 to have it ready to eat right around midnight :P
Renee says
How/where do you store after cutting up?
Lorena says
You can store it on the kitchen counter or the fridge depending on your room temperature. Anywhere you would store chocolate. In summer I would store it in the fridge, in the winter my pantry is enough :)
Pam says
How do you pop amaranth?
Lorena says
https://greenhealthycooking.com/popped-amaranth/
Leah says
Looks delicious !! What brand of chocolate do you like to use?
Lorena says
Thank you :) Currently my favorites are AlterEco and Green & Black’s :)