How to Incorporate Chocolate into Pasta (It’s More Common Than You Think)

Chocolate pasta may sound like the crowd-pleasing crossover dish at a children’s party, but in reality, Italians have used chocolate in pasta, sauces, and even meat dishes for centuries. The deep, slightly acidic notes of cocoa complement a variety of flavors, and you don’t even have to go all the way to Tuscany to try it. Adding chocolate to pasta is quite straightforward, and if you’ve made fresh pasta at home, there’s very little you need to change to give it a chocolate twist. Even if you don’t have a pasta machine, a clean work surface, a rolling pin, and a sharp knife are all you need to make pasta. In fact, the technical difference between machine and handmade pasta is that the latter has more texture, allowing sauce to adhere to it better. 

The process starts with the usual steps of making pasta dough, with the only difference being that you also include unsweetened cocoa powder in the dry ingredients. The amount of cocoa used can be anywhere from about 15% up to 25% of the total weight of the flour. Remember to sift the cocoa to avoid bitter lumps in the dough and simply follow the usual best practices for making fresh pasta dough, like ensuring it’s not too dry or too sticky and resting it long enough.

Chocolate pasta is versatile, and you can use it in an elegant savory dish, with a quick pesto or bolognese, as a lightly sweet playful recipe, or even an all-out dessert. Only if you’re going with the last two options should you sweeten the dough with powdered sugar (about 2 tablespoons for about every 2 cups of dry ingredients, but this can be reduced to adjust for a sweeter sauce).

You’ll find no dearth of savory dishes that pair well with chocolate, so when picking a sauce for chocolate pasta, it really comes down to the flavors you’re craving and how much elbow grease you’re willing to put in. That said, since this is an elevated pasta, using a jarred Alfredo sauce, no matter how good, may not do it justice. Fortunately, a simple cheese sauce made with mascarpone, or for a more robust flavor, gorgonzola cheese, is all you need. The cocoa’s rich notes contrast perfectly with the creamy, pungent cheese, and a sprinkling of toasted walnuts completes the dish.

Seeing how well cocoa pairs with creamy sauces, it’s not a stretch to add mushrooms into the mix. You can therefore substitute regular pasta with chocolate pasta in any creamy mushroom pasta dish, like a decadent mushroom fettuccine, for instance. For more robust flavors, look no further than another classic — chocolate is a delectable ingredient in bolognese that adds a rich bitterness, so you can upgrade your usual recipe by pairing it with chocolate pasta.

Finally, a more experimental pairing is that of chocolate pasta with a fresh pesto sauce. For this combination, ditch the basil pesto and use another Italian flavor powerhouse: pistachio. The lightly sweet flavor of pistachio, combined with the nutty notes in Parmigiano, which you should garnish the dish with, pair perfectly with cocoa-infused pasta, not to mention that the green and dark brown color combination makes for a particularly striking visual.

When making dishes that veer towards the sweeter end of the spectrum, remember that you still need to boil chocolate pasta in salted water. However, you can use slightly less salt than you would for a savory pasta dish. Adding some cinnamon powder to your pasta dough can also enhance the sweet flavors of the dish.

For a lightly sweet dish, try whipping up a caramel sauce using butter, sugar, and cream and stirring it into boiled chocolate pasta. Top the dish with toasted pecans and a dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream, and you have an elegant, sweet pasta dish. Berries can also be incorporated, considering how well they combine with chocolate. Simply simmer or oven-roast raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries with balsamic vinegar and honey or maple syrup to make a chunky, tangy sauce, and toss the pasta in it. For this dish, it’s best to use chocolate pasta which has been sweetened by mixing sugar into the pasta dough to balance the tartness of the sauce.

Finally, a full-fledged dessert pasta dish can be made with a melted milk chocolate sauce. Add-ins can include fresh berries, roasted nuts, candied fruits, and even mint chips. To make the dish feel adult-ish and to introduce some depth, add a splash of orange liqueur, or simply use Julia Child’s boozy method for melting chocolate when making the sauce (hint: it involves rum). Finish with a sprinkling of grated white chocolate for the perfect contrasting color presentation.