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Chocolate hazelnut spread occupies a unique position in the food world. It’s simultaneously a pantry staple and a luxury product, a childhood memory and a gourmet indulgence. The combination of roasted hazelnuts and dark cocoa dates back to 19th-century Piedmont, where chocolatiers mixed ground hazelnuts with cocoa to stretch their supply when imported beans were expensive. Today, the category spans everything from the $5 supermarket jar to the $25 artisanal tin. I’ve spent the last month tasting my way through fourteen chocolate hazelnut spreads to find the ones that justify their price, their ingredient claims, and their space in your cupboard. This guide covers the brands worth knowing, ranked with honest explanations of why each one made the list.

I rated each spread on four criteria: hazelnut intensity (how much does it actually taste like hazelnuts?), chocolate quality (bitter, sweet, artificial, real?), texture (smooth, grainy, oily, perfect?), and ingredient integrity (is the first ingredient sugar or nuts?).

What Separates Great from Average

The single most important factor is the nut-to-sugar ratio. Mass-market spreads like Nutella contain roughly 13% hazelnuts. Premium spreads like Rigoni di Asiago Nocciolata contain 33%. Artisan options like Castronovo or Rózsavölgyi Csokoládé use hazelnuts as the first ingredient by weight, which means the spread tastes like hazelnuts with chocolate rather than sugar with a hint of hazelnut. The difference is not subtle — side by side, the premium options taste fundamentally like a different product.

The second factor is hazelnut origin. Piedmont hazelnuts, specifically the Tonda Gentile Trilobata variety, are considered the gold standard. They have a higher oil content and a sweeter flavour than hazelnuts from other regions. Spreads that use Piedmont hazelnuts — like Nocciolata and Chocolat Chiaro — taste noticeably rounder and less bitter than those using Turkish hazelnuts, which are the most common variety in mass-market spreads.

The fat source matters too. The best spreads use cocoa butter or the hazelnuts’ own oil as the primary fat. Mid-range options use sunflower or coconut oil. Mass-market options use palm oil. The fat source directly affects mouthfeel and how the spread feels on your tongue. Cocoa butter-based spreads melt cleanly. Palm oil-based spreads leave a slightly waxy coating. For a broader look at how different spreads compare across categories, see our best chocolate spread brands ranking.

Rigoni di Asiago Nocciolata — The Benchmark

Nocciolata is the spread that made me stop buying Nutella. It uses 33% Piedmont hazelnuts — more than double Nutella’s content — and swaps palm oil for sunflower oil, which reduces the saturated fat content. The dark version contains 13g of sugar per serving compared to Nutella’s 21g. The taste is genuinely nuttier, and the chocolate flavour is more pronounced because it doesn’t have to compete with as much sweetness.

Available at Whole Foods and online for about $10 per 350g jar. It comes in milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and dairy-free versions. The dairy-free version uses rice milk powder and tastes almost identical to the original. I’ve converted three Nutella loyalists with a single blind taste test using the dark version. The texture is slightly firmer than Nutella straight from the cupboard, but 30 seconds of stirring solves that.

Rózsavölgyi Csokoládé — The Artisan Winner

Rózsavölgyi Csokoládé is a Hungarian craft chocolate maker whose hazelnut spread is the best I’ve ever tasted. It uses single-origin cacao from Tanzania and Piedmont hazelnuts, roasted in-house and ground with cocoa butter and a small amount of cane sugar. The ingredient list is four items: hazelnuts, cacao beans, cane sugar, cocoa butter. That’s it.

The taste is extraordinary. The hazelnut flavour is the first thing you notice — rich, toasty, unmistakable — followed by a dark chocolate finish that lingers without cloying sweetness. The texture is thick and luxurious, closer to a room-temperature ganache than a spreadable paste. It costs $22 per 200g jar, which is expensive by any reasonable measure. But if you eat chocolate spread as an intentional pleasure rather than a convenience, this is the one that justifies the splurge. Available through Rózsavölgyi’s website with US shipping.

Chocolat Chiaro — The Italian Specialist

Chocolat Chiaro makes a single-ingredient-focused spread using Piedmont hazelnuts IGP (the protected geographical indication, which guarantees the hazelnuts come from specific Piedmontese regions) and single-origin cocoa from Ecuador. The spread is darker than most Italian spreads — 57% nut and cocoa content — and the sugar is kept intentionally low.

The flavour profile leans savoury rather than sweet. The hazelnuts are roasted dark, which gives the spread a roasted-nut depth that most competitors lack. It’s not for everyone — I served it to friends and the reactions were split between “this is incredible” and “it’s too bitter.” If you enjoy dark chocolate (70% or higher), you’ll fall into the first camp. At $20 per 250g jar, it’s more approachable than Rózsavölgyi but still a premium purchase. Available at specialty Italian food retailers and online.

Ferrero Nutella — The Mass-Market Standard

Nutella is the spread that 65% of the world reaches for by default, and it earned that position through consistency. Every jar tastes exactly like every other jar, the texture is always perfect, and it’s available in every grocery store from rural Kansas to central Tokyo. The ingredient list — sugar, palm oil, 13% hazelnuts — won’t impress anyone who reads labels, but the product delivers exactly what it promises: a sweet, smooth, reliable chocolate hazelnut spread that costs $5.

There’s a place for Nutella in the pantry. It’s the spread you use when you’re baking for a crowd and need predictable results. It’s the spread kids will eat without complaint. It’s the spread that works as an ingredient when you don’t want the hazelnut flavour to compete with other elements. Knowing its limitations is the key to using it well. For a detailed head-to-head comparison, read our chocolate spread vs Nutella analysis.

Castronovo Chocolate Spread — The Bean-to-Bar Entry

Castronovo makes a nut-free chocolate spread from single-origin cacao, so it’s technically not a chocolate hazelnut spread — but it deserves mention because it’s the best expression of what chocolate spread can be when made with exceptional ingredients. The cacao comes from Sierra Leone, the sugar is organic cane, and the fat is cocoa butter. Three ingredients, all from the same bean-to-bar production line that produces Castronovo’s award-winning chocolate bars.

Spread this on toast and the difference from Nutella is night and day. It tastes like chocolate, not sugar. The texture is firmer — almost like a dark chocolate ganache — and it melts at body temperature rather than feeling waxy. At $18 per 200g jar, it’s a commitment. But for anyone who wants to understand what chocolate spread tastes like when the chocolate is the star rather than the sugar, Castronovo delivers.

Other Brands Worth Mentioning

One final category worth mentioning: chocolate spreads with added inclusions. Some brands produce hazelnut spreads with bits of crushed hazelnuts or cocoa nibs mixed in. I tested three — Rigoni di Asiago’s crunchy version, a limited-edition spread from Nutiva with cacao nibs, and an artisan version from Atypico that uses caramelised hazelnut pieces. The Rigoni version is the most successful: the crunch is evenly distributed and doesn’t get soggy after a few days in the jar. The Nutiva version is pleasant but the nibs don’t add enough texture to justify the premium. The Atypico spread is genuinely excellent but costs $28 per jar and is only available for three months of the year.

Nutivia Hazelnut Cacao Spread offers the best value in the mid-range at $7 per 300g jar. It uses 17% Italian hazelnuts and coconut oil instead of palm oil. The sugar content is 11g per serving — about half of Nutella’s. Available at Target. For a keto-friendly hazelnut spread, ChocZero’s version uses monk fruit sweetener and delivers 1g net carbs per serving, though the texture is thicker and the hazelnut content is lower than premium options. For the full keto picture, see our keto chocolate spread recipes.

Barefoot & Chocolate makes a small-batch hazelnut spread using local honey instead of sugar, which gives it a distinctive floral sweetness. It’s produced in Minnesota and available online for $14 per 240g jar. The honey flavour is noticeable — if you’re a honey fan, this will delight you. If you want a neutral sweetness, look elsewhere.

I should also address the elephant in the room: price. The spreads in this guide range from $5 to $22 per jar, and it’s reasonable to ask whether the premium options are four times better than the budget ones. The honest answer is no — not in a strict value-for-money sense. A $5 jar of Nutella provides 80% of the utility of a $22 jar of Rózsavölgyi for 25% of the price. But the difference matters in a different way: the premium options taste like a deliberately crafted product rather than a manufactured commodity. If you eat chocolate spread once a week, the annual cost difference between Nutella and Nocciolata is about $60. For that $60, you get significantly better ingredients, better flavour, and a better nutritional profile. That’s a trade worth making for most people.

The best chocolate hazelnut spread isn’t the one with the fanciest label or the highest price. It’s the one that hits the ratio you personally prefer — more hazelnut than sugar, more cocoa than vanilla, more texture than palm oil. I’ve found mine in Rózsavölgyi for special occasions and Nocciolata for everyday. If you take one thing from this guide, let it be this: the jump from mass-market to mid-range is the biggest quality improvement you can make without blowing your budget. For the full range of chocolate information and brand guides, visit the buy chocolate homepage.