The Easy Trick for Making Store-Bought Hot Cocoa Way Better

Growing up the weakling in a family of winterproof skiers, hot chocolate was my parents’ way of softening the blow of a good blizzard. Daily stops at the hot chocolate machine were encouraged. If food is a love language, hot chocolate translates to a liquid apology: I’m sorry you got so cold, kid.

Still today, older and sturdier, it’s the soothing balm I make myself when the mercury drops. But for today’s thawing-out episodes, I always give hot chocolate a crucial upgrade: I stir in a knob of butter. Adding butter makes it richer and a bit more viscous, transforming my simple self-care ritual into something downright indulgent. 

Adult me puts hot chocolate (always “hot chocolate” to me, never “hot cocoa”) into three categories. On the lower end, there’s the powdered variety, which includes both the lifesaving little packets and the big ski-lodge machines that nursed me through childhood. At the high end, there’s Euro-style drinking chocolate, which is basically melted chocolate bars that you sip until your eyes roll back.

In the middle, there’s my Goldilocks, an easy homemade hot chocolate: I stir together a cup of semisweet chocolate chips with two cups of milk and whisk it in a pan over low heat until all the chocolate has melted. Even though the homemade kind only takes a minute longer than opening a paper envelope of instant powder, not all cold-toed emergencies occur in a stocked kitchen. So, I usually rely on the instant type, which butter elevates, no matter what brand you use. 

How To Add Butter to Hot Chocolate (and Which Butter Is Best)

The butter trick adds noticeably deeper chocolate flavor to even the most anemic powdered packet—just drop a bit of butter into a mug with the chocolate powder, then add the boiling water and stir until the butter melts. 

While any butter makes instant hot chocolate better, not all butter is created equal. I prefer salted butter, which enhances the taste of the chocolate itself a bit more, but my teen likes unsalted butter because it boosts body and flavor without tamping down any existing sweetness.

Enough tinkering has taught me that I prefer adding about two teaspoons of butter to an eight-ounce cup—any less doesn’t add quite the same decadence, and any more makes the hot chocolate really taste like butter. Curiously, it’s also the amount of butter in one of those pre-packaged butter pats at a ski lodge baked potato bar. But I didn’t tell you that.