It may have a long name, but the recipe is short; this easy snack is made with just four ingredients — toasted almonds, dark chocolate, sea salt, and turbinado sugar! This quick and easy treat is inspired by the Trader Joe’s Sea Salt & Turbinado Sugar Dark Chocolate Almonds.
I went for a run this morning for the first time in a long, long time. A real run, not on the elliptical but outside, with Leia. It wasn’t very far and it wasn’t very fast, but it was a run, even if my lungs nearly exploded and my legs were red and itchy in protest the whole entire time (is that normal? Didn’t seem normal?).
I used to run daily, and I loved it. I used to think four miles was a short run 🙄
I’d say I’m not sure what happened, but I know exactly what happened — sugar, cookies, cupcakes… I spent my time baking instead of running and while it’s definitely paid off now that I’m blogging full time, since I have a little more free time now I definitely want to get back into running, and maybe some of the slightly lighter snacks that I used to enjoy…
Like, say some dark chocolate almonds.
Sea Salt & Turbinado Sugar Dark Chocolate Almonds from Trader Joe’s were one of my favorite snack splurges back in my running days. They were also expensive, but they were so deliciously addictive I never seemed to mind.
Recently the genius idea dawned on me to make my own dark chocolate almonds (especially since I hate going to Trader Joe’s — the store is wonderful but trying to get into the parking lot at the closest one to me is more difficult than solving a labyrinth I swear). They’re incredibly simple and use just four ingredients… which are right there in the title. Sea salt. Turbinado sugar. Dark chocolate. Almonds.
Doesn’t get much easier than that, does it?
In case you haven’t used Turbinado sugar before, it’s a brown sugar with large coarse granules. I buy Sugar in the Raw brand (which you should be able to find right next to the regular sugar in the grocery store), and often use Turbinado sugar to top off my muffins and galettes.
Here it’s paired with sea salt for a crunchy, sweet and salty treat. You can sprinkle on as much of each as you’d like, but I always, always opt for more sugar than salt (shocker, right?).
I toast my almonds before coating them in chocolate. I prefer the texture, taste, and crisp snappiness of them when they’re toasted, but you can skip that step if you feel so inclined.
Toasting them is easy, though, just pop them in a 350F oven and turn them every few minutes.
Enjoy!
Sea Salt & Turbinado Sugar Dark Chocolate Almonds
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups whole almonds (245g)
- 6 oz dark chocolate I use 60% dark chocolate Ghirardelli bars (170g)
- 1/4 cup Turbinado sugar (50g)
- sea salt for sprinkling
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350F (175C). Scatter almonds evenly over an ungreased cookie sheet.
- Bake almonds in 350F (175C) oven for 10-15 minutes, using a spatula to turn the almonds every 5 minutes. You will smell a roasted nutty aroma when they are finished baking. Allow almonds to cool before coating in chocolate.
- Coarsely chop your chocolate and place in a small bowl. Microwave on 15 second increments, stirring well in between, until chocolate is melted and smooth.
- Pour your prepared almonds into the bowl of chocolate and stir well.
- Use a fork to lift almonds out of the chocolate and drop almonds individually and separately onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper or parchment paper. You want most of the excess chocolate to drain off of the nuts before they make it to the paper, and the fork allows much of the chocolate to drain through the tines. I usually use two forks, one to lift the almonds out, and another to carefully drop the almonds separately onto the sheet.
- Sprinkle almonds with turbinado sugar and sea salt. Allow the chocolate to harden before enjoying (this can take over an hour at room temperature, or you can speed things up by moving the almonds to the refrigerator).
Nutrition
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Sues says
I’ve been craving a run lately… though I know I’ll be miserable the whole time 🙂 It might be a little bit easier if I had this snack waiting for me at home!
Shawnna says
hey girl- these almonds look oh so good!