Healthy Crunch Vegan White Chocolate Review

Ever since I had to give up dairy (thanks allergies!), I have been in search of a decent vegan white chocolate chip to use in my baking. And finally, I found something that lives up to my expectations. Healthy Crunch Vegan White Chocolate Chips are Canadian-made and available in several grocery stores across Canada and on various health food websites as well. Let’s put this chocolate through a few tests.

White Chocolate Lover

I grew up obsessed with chocolate and in particular white chocolate buttons and Milky Bar. I’ve always loved that creaminess and melt-in-the-mouth consistency that white chocolate has. And it’s definitely been something that I’ve craved since having to remove dairy from my diet in late 2018.

As someone who loves to bake, there are always times when I want to use white chocolate in my baked goods but when you’re dairy free, that can be somewhat tricky. Why? There is a lack of vegan white chocolate available in grocery stores in Canada and finding vegan white chocolate chips has been like searching for a magical unicorn (no joke!). So I did a little bit of research online and found an allergy-friendly brand that is made in Ontario, Canada called Healthy Crunch. Oh, happy day!

Full disclosure that this is not a sponsored post. I’m always happy to share my honest reviews of new products as I know how overwhelming the allergy-friendly product space can be.

Who is Healthy Crunch?

Based out of Mississauga, Ontario, Healthy Crunch is a woman-owned company that makes allergen-friendly products with locally sourced ingredients. When I started reading more about this company, I really liked the premise behind them – to make products that taste really good and are of great quality even though they’re free from allergens. This exactly matches my ‘why’ as well so it seemed like a really good brand to try in my baked goods. You can read more about Healthy Crunch on their Canadian website here and buy their products. They also have a US website where you can purchase their products here.

Cost

I paid $8.99 Canadian for a 300-gram bag of vegan white cholate chips. Honestly, this price point isn’t that unreasonable when you compare it to some of the other vegan chocolate chip options that are available such as the Enjoy Life chocolate chips and the President’s Choice brand that I usually buy from my local grocery store.

A closer look at the product

I really like that the packaging states that the product is school approved so you know straight away that you’re not going to have any major allergen issues with this. It has a handy zip closure at the top to keep everything fresh and stands up really nicely in the pantry as well.

It also shows that the chocolate is allergen friendly, dairy free, soy free, peanut free, tree nut free, non-GMO verified, paleo AND gluten free so that pretty much covers all bases for most major allergens. Love that!

Ingredients

On the back of the packaging, there’s a little bit more info about the product. The statement from Healthy Crunch reiterates that they want to make sure that they’re making real foods that make you feel good on the inside and out. Now if like me you do have a lot of food allergies, that’s definitely something that is really important when you’re looking at new products.

In terms of ingredients, the chips are made from cocoa butter, cane sugar, tapioca, rice syrup, rice powder and vanilla. 6 really simple ingredients with no red flags for allergen concerns. I love that they include a manufacturing statement that shows the product is made in a tree nut-free, peanut-free and gluten-free facility. This is amazing as these are often the big issues that allergy families look out for when choosing safe products to consume.

Nutrition-wise, the packaging states that you should get about 20 portions from this packet, which is 15 grams per serving, and that’s going to give you 80 calories. Quite honestly though, whenever I’m eating chocolate I’m really not thinking about nutritional values. But this is great info to keep in mind if you are tracking your calories or following a specific intake diet.

Product Testing

The chocolate chips look really good at first glance and you can see that they have a nice shape to them. They don’t feel like they’re going to melt in your hand or feel grainy or crumbly. Honestly, I’m not sure you’d be able to tell the difference if you placed them next to real white chocolate chips and ran a blind test.

In terms of taste, they don’t taste that bad at all. Clearly, they don’t taste exactly like dairy white chocolate and there is a very slight powderiness to them. That being said, from all of the vegan chocolate I’ve tried over the years, this is typical and not offensive in any way. There is a slight creaminess to them and they do melt in the mouth nicely as well, which suggests that they will melt well when baked.

Microwave Test

My last test is the all-important microwave test. I popped 100 grams of the chocolate chips in a glass bowl and heated it at 30-second intervals. After a minute in the microwave now, the chips were mostly melted. Top Tip: whenever I’m melting chocolate in the microwave I always stop it before the entire bowl is fully melted. As you stir the melted chocolate together, the heat will transfer throughout the bowl and continue to melt everything. So rather than over-melting and potentially seizing the chocolate, this is a much safer way of melting chocolate. I can definitely see myself using this in its melted form to drizzle on baked goods, in homemade chocolate bars and dipped strawberries.

Now I have to say that I was very impressed with how well this chocolate melted. It has a really nice pour and a lovely shine to it. And when it set, it still retained a slight shine.

I also decided to have a quick taste of the chocolate once it was melted to see whether that changed the flavour in any way. The main thing that I noticed is that the powderiness disappeared. And I honestly couldn’t tell that it was vegan chocolate at this stage.

General FAQs

Final Thoughts

Overall, I’m really impressed with this product. Now, of course, if you grew up on something like Milky Bar, it’s definitely not going to taste like that. And I do think that anyone that has to eat vegan or dairy-free chocolate knows that you’re never going to replicate the flavours of dairy chocolate fully so you have to lower your expectations slightly. That being said, I definitely think this is really good ‘chocolate’. I do like how it looks when it melts. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that I think it probably melted better than some of the other vegan milk chocolates that I’ve reviewed recently. Great job Healthy Crunch!

If you’d like to watch my full vlog review, check out this video:

Recipe Suggestions

I recently used these chocolate chips in my new vegan white chocolate cranberry cookie recipe (recipe coming soon). I loved that they melted slightly but still retained a great shape and tasted wonderful in the cookies. I’m excited to try using them in other baked goods and treats as well so watch this space.

This chocolate would pair well with the following recipes:

• Dip and drizzle melted white chocolate on my no bake cheesecake truffles (vegan)
• Add the white chips to my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe (vegan)
• Use them in my kid-approved rocky road muffins (vegan)

Enjoyed this review?

Let me know in the comments below if you have a favourite brand of white chocolate that you use. And watch out for more allergy-safe product reviews coming soon. There’s definitely an increase in allergy-friendly products becoming available, particularly in Canada where we are generally a little behind other Western countries, and I do enjoy sharing my thoughts on them with you.

If you have a product that you’d like me to test, feel free to reach out to me here.