How to Melt Dipping Chocolate in Your Instant Pot (Sous Vide Double Boiler Method)
Make Instant Pot dipping chocolate for chocolate-dipped strawberries by turning the pressure cooker into a double boiler! Keep your chocolate a precise temperature so it stays melty and silky from the beginning to the end!
Why you’ll love melting chocolate with your Instant Pot
Using your Instant Pot to make chocolate fondue is the easiest way to ensure that your chocolate says melty without burning or drying out. The Sous Vide function keeps the chocolate at the perfect temperature.
This is our go-to method for making chocolate-covered strawberries for Valentine’s Day treats!
We love making desserts like this dipping chocolate in the Instant Pot. If you haven’t tried an Instant Pot cheesecake yet, you must! Start with our how-to post, then try our Easy Raspberry Cheesecake or Samoa Cheesecake.
INGREDIENTS YOU NEED
Here’s everything you need for the best dipping chocolate to make fondue at home using your pressure cooker:
- Strawberries. Be sure your berries are well-rinsed and thoroughly dried.
- Chocolate wafers. Look for melting wafers, since they’re much easier to work with than chocolate chips.
- White chocolate. This is optional, if you’d like to add a white chocolate decoration to your chocolate-dipped strawberries. (Or swap this out for multi-color candy melts, soft jimmies sprinkles, or whatever else strikes your fancy.)
For convenience and fuss-free melting, we really like Ghirardelli melting wafers, which are available in our local grocery stores as well as Target and Walmart. (We used milk chocolate, but dark chocolate or white chocolate would both be good options!) Any other compound chocolate would be a great choice as well.
For flavor, we really love Guittard Old Dutch wafers, which are a fancier chocolate made with pure cocoa butter that you’ll find in specialty stores. Any couverture chocolate would be a good choice here, just keep in mind it’s a little more particular to work with.
How to Make Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries in an Instant Pot
✅ This easy recipe will work in any brand of electric pressure cooker, including the Instant Pot, Ninja Foodi, or Power Pressure Cooker XL.
Start by preparing a baking sheet with parchment paper to prevent the berries from sticking. If you’re using chocolate that needs tempering, chop about a quarter of it into equal pieces.
Then prep your Instant Pot by filling it with two cups of water and set the temperature to 140°F using the Sous Vide function. When the water has reached temperature, turn the Sous Vide temperature down to 90°F.
Place a heat-proof bowl on top of the pressure cooking pot. The bowl should be large enough to completely cover the top of the Instant Pot so steam doesn’t escape. But the bowl should not contact the water.
Place about three-quarters of the chocolate wafers in your bowl and stir as it melts until it’s smooth. Remove the bowl from the Instant Pot and add the reserved chopped chocolate. Allow to sit for a minute, then stir until the chocolate is melted and smooth. If necessary, you can return the bowl to the Instant Pot for a little more heat.
Now you’re ready to dip! Use a skewer or carefully hold a strawberry by the stem and place it in the chocolate to gently coat, letting the chocolate come most of the way up the sides of the berry.
Dap any dripping chocolate against a spoon to avoid any large globs from forming, then place the covered strawberry on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat dipping the remaining strawberries.
Place your covered strawberries in the fridge until they’re cooled completely. They’re ready to enjoy, or you can drizzle the berries with melted white chocolate to add a decoration. If you add white chocolate, chill the berries in the fridge again until it’s set.
More Info: If you splurged on the fancy chocolate or just have had bad luck in the past, check out this helpful article with tons of information and tricks for melting and tempering chocolate.
Important Tips for Making Chocolate-Covered Strawberries
- Make sure the bowl is big enough to cover the entire opening of the pot and that it isn’t deep enough to touch the water. This will ensure your chocolate stays a lovely temperature.
- Be sure to watch and stir your chocolate the entire time it’s melting! Use an Instant Read thermometer while the chocolate is melting to ensure the chocolate does not exceed 115°F. If it ever starts to get close, remove the bowl from the pressure cooker and continue stirring until it cools off.
- It’s important that your water temperature does not exceed 140°F. You can add some cold water or ice cubes to the sous vide water inside the cooking pot to bring down the temperature.
- Scraping the excess chocolate on the edge of the bowl after dipping the strawberry helps prevent a clunky foot from forming on the bottom of your berries.
Products You’ll Need for Making Treats with Dipping Chocolate
This recipe will work with any pressure cooker, but you’ll need a few more items to complete the job:
- Skewers can be helpful for dipping, but you can hold the berries by the leaves or stems if you don’t have skewers. We love these metal skewers.
- Baking sheet. You’ll want one that you can fit in the fridge. We really love the baking sheets that come with matching lids.
- Parchment paper. This prevents the chocolate from sticking to the cold baking sheet. We like precut parchment sheets for quick use.
- Heat-proof bowl. You can use any oven-safe bowl that is wide enough to fully cover the top of your Instant Pot so no steam escapes. (Water is the enemy of dipping chocolate, so you’ll want to double check the seal is good.) We have an old hand-me-down we use, you can get a similar bowl here.
Frequently Asked Questions about Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries
Chocolate-covered strawberries are best the day they’re made, but you may be able to store these for a few days in an airtight container if your berries are quite fresh.
Freezing will help the chocolate set up faster, but it can also damage your fresh berries, so it’s better to use the fridge, not the freezer.
We love adding a drizzle of white chocolate to the fully-set chocolate-dipped berries. You can also add a sprinkle of graham cracker crumbs, sprinkles, mini chocolate chips, or other sweet crunchy bits before the chocolate coating hardens.
Guittard makes very high-quality chocolate for melting, but it needs to be tempered. We’ve also had success with these Ghiradelli chocolate wafers, which don’t require tempering.
Use the Double-Boiler Method to Melt Chocolate for Any Sweet Treat
You can turn this recipe into a fondue party! Here are some other items that we love to dip into our melted chocolate:
- Sliced bananas
- Orange segments
- Frozen grapes
- Apple slices
- Marshmallows
- Graham crackers
- Cinnamon bears
MORE Chocolatey Instant Pot Recipes
Try these other sweet treats in your pressure cooker next:
- Triple Chocolate Layered Cheesecake has fluffy slices of dark, white, and milk chocolate cheesecake.
- Chocolate Pots de Crème are adorable single-serving sweets perfect for Valentine’s Day.
- Chocolate Cake for Two is just enough for a couple to share! With decadent chocolate frosting, of course.
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Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 package 2 pounds fresh strawberries, well rinsed and allowed to dry
- 1 package 10 oz melting chocolate wafers
- 3 to 5 oz white chocolate for decoration optional*
Instructions
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Fill the pressure cooking pot with 2 cups water. Select Sous Vide and set the temperature for 140F.
- If you have purchased a chocolate that requires tempering, rough chop about 1/4 of the chocolate into evenly sized pieces. Set aside.
- When the pot has preheated, adjust the Sous Vide temperature down to 90F. Set an oven-safe bowl on top of the pressure cooking pot that completely covers the cooking pot, with no steam escaping the sides. Place about 3/4 of the chocolate wafers inside the oven-safe bowl. Stir regularly until the chocolate is completely melted and smooth.
- *Use an Instant Read thermometer to ensure the chocolate does not exceed 115F. If it ever starts to get close, remove the bowl from the pressure cooker and continue stirring until it cools off. If your bowl is quite thin, you can add some cold water or ice cubes to the cooking pot until
- Remove the bowl from the cooking pot, then add the remaining ¼ of chocolate and stir until melted and smooth. (If needed, return the bowl back to the top of the cooking pot to help melt the remaining chocolate.)
- Hold a strawberry by the stem or use a skewer to pierce midway through the fruit. Gently dip them into the chocolate, turning them to coat the bottom two-thirds of the berry. Gently dab excess chocolate against a spoon or a skewer set into the bowl to prevent a large foot from forming. Transfer to the parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat this process, stirring the chocolate frequently to ensure the temperature stays in the desired zone.
- Once all the strawberries are dipped, transfer the baking sheet to the refrigerator until the strawberries have cooled and set completely.
- After the chocolate has set, if you’d like you can drizzle the strawberries with melted white chocolate if desired. Use a spoon to drizzle the white chocolate over the cooled chocolate-covered strawberries. Return the baking sheet to the refrigerator until the chocolate has hardened completely.
Notes
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Any suggestions? My Instant Pot doesn’t have a sous vide function.