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Chocolate and coffee anyone? You can have the best of both worlds as part of your morning routine in just a few minutes with this recipe!
After some chilly days here in August, the heat finally came back, and I couldn’t be happier! With the few days of summer I have left here, I’m definitely making the most out of enjoying some iced coffees, and chocolate always makes them better, wouldn’t you agree?
I had recently ordered an iced latte with chocolate from a local coffee shop and wasn’t the biggest of it, unfortunately. The killer for me was their use of a generic brand, No Name, syrup! I was totally disappointed because I truly believed that a local establishment would have used an in-house chocolate sauce! On the other hand, I went to Second Cup and ordered the same drink and truly adored their iced latte with chocolate! As I explain in my free motivational guide to explore your potential in the kitchen, Make Cooking Fun!, going out to eat (or drink!) can inspire you to make those favorite creations right from home! These drinks do get expensive, plus it was on my bucket list to make some chocolate sauce for quite some time. I combined both intrinsic motivations to come up with this amazing iced latte with chocolate that I’m happy to share with you today! If you’ve also wanted to check a wonderful homemade chocolate sauce off your bucket list of things to cook, then I definitely encourage you to do the same as part of your Live to Cook one-month challenge! Get started on your cooking journey for free by signing up to my newsletter, plus you’ll get all of my latest recipes sent straight to your inbox!
To see from start to finish how to prepare the best homemade chocolate sauce and how we incorporate it in our iced latte, then be sure to watch the video! I would really appreciate it if you could please subscribe to my YouTube channel, and don’t forget to hit the bell button to be notified when all of my video recipes go live! Let’s get brewing!
What is an Iced Latte?▼
A latte is a coffee drink, either hot or cold, that consists of espresso and milk. More specifically, the ratio of espresso to milk is 1 part espresso and 2 parts milk. You can have simple lattes or flavor them with your choice of sweeteners, syrups - including Vanilla Simple Syrup or Brown Sugar Syrup, or sauces, like a Pumpkin Spice Sauce or Caramel Sauce. In this case, we’re going for a flavored latte, and the chocolate flavor will come from our Homemade Chocolate Sauce. It will be iced because our milk won’t be steamed, and we’re going to add ice cubes to cool down the hot espresso!
What is the Difference Between a Chocolate Latte and a Mocha?▼
This can be quite confusing, whether we are talking about both drinks hot or cold. I have a Cafe Mocha recipe, and the main characteristics of a Cafe Mocha is that it has rich chocolatey milk that is combined with espresso. On the other hand, a chocolate-flavored latte is significantly different! If we’re going to have the same debate of an Iced Mocha versus an Iced Chocolate Latte. The iced mocha will have very deep chocolate flavors mixed with milk and a touch of espresso, but the latte will be prepared like a traditional latte with the addition of simple chocolate sauce, not a rich mocha sauce.
Equipment Needed to Make This Iced Chocolate Latte
Ingredients
All ingredients and their quantities can be found in the FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD, so scroll down to the bottom of this post or press the “Jump to Recipe” button to save the recipe for later! You can also use the recipe card’s scale function to adjust the ingredient quantities based on how many lattes you want to make.
For the Chocolate Sauce
For the Latte
How to Make an Iced Latte with Chocolate
For the Chocolate Sauce
In a saucepan, add the cocoa powder, sugar and water and turn on the heat.
Whisk well and warm the mixture until it starts to steam and the chocolate syrup is smooth.
Once the syrup has thickened to your liking, remove from the heat and transfer to a mason jar. Add the vanilla extract and a pinch of salt.
For the Iced Latte
Prepare the espresso using an espresso machine.
Alternatively, prepare espresso-like coffee using a French press or coffee maker that has a specialty brew setting.
Add 4-5 Tbsp of chocolate sauce to the bottom of the cup.
Add in ice cubes, followed by the milk.
Then pour in the coffee.
Stir slightly and enjoy!
Tips for the Best Iced Latte at Home
- Layer the ingredients as I have advised above to get a decadent gradient in the drink as the various types of ingredients combine.
- Make use of whole milk to get the creamiest texture. Alternatively, you can substitute the milk with non-dairy alternatives like macadamia, almond or soy milk.
- You can choose to prepare homemade cold brew and use that instead to turn this drink into a chocolatey cold brew.
- Use dutch processed cocoa powder if you prefer a deeper and richer chocolatey flavor that is not too sweet in taste.
Questions You May Have!
Can I Make This Latte in Advance?▼
Well, technically you can since it is a cold drink, so you don’t have to worry about the drink getting cold! However, if you’re leaving it out at room temperature, then you may worry about the ice melting and the drink becoming watery as a result of the melted ice. Your iced latte would probably be best fresh, but if you know me, then I almost never finish my drinks as soon as I get them! So, if you want to put this in the fridge and save it for later, then no worries! It can last up to three to four days depending on the freshness of your milk.
Can I Make a Hot Chocolate Latte?▼
Of course you can! Follow the step of adding milk to the bottom of your cup. Then, steam your milk and froth it. Brew your espresso, adding it directly to the cup over the chocolate sauce, and finish with your steamed milk. If you want to garnish with some additional cocoa powder or chocolate sauce, then feel free to do so!
Other Cold Coffee Recipes
- Starbucks Iced White Chocolate Mocha
- Starbucks Chocolate Cream Cold Brew
- Starbucks Iced Brown Sugar Shaken Espresso
- Starbucks Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino
- Starbucks Iced Pumpkin Spice Latte
- Eggnog Dalgona Latte
- Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino
- Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew
No Espresso Machine? Here Is What Works Instead
The recipe is written for 4 shots of espresso, but it does not actually depend on owning an espresso machine. What the drink needs is coffee concentrated enough to still taste like coffee once it has met half a cup of milk, ice and 4 to 5 tablespoons of chocolate sauce. A regular mug of drip coffee will not survive that; it turns into chocolate milk with a brown tint.
A French press does the job well if you make it strong — use roughly double the coffee you normally would for the same water and steep it a little longer, then chill it. Many drip machines also have a strong or specialty setting that pulls a smaller, more concentrated volume, and that works too. A moka pot is the closest thing to real espresso most kitchens have. In each case you are aiming for about the same amount of liquid as 4 shots, not a full mug of brewed coffee.
Instant coffee powder is the fallback nobody likes to admit works, and it does: dissolve 2 to 3 teaspoons of instant espresso powder in a couple of tablespoons of hot water, stir until there are no grains left, and let it cool before it goes over the ice. It is not as rounded as pulled espresso, but against cocoa and sugar the difference narrows considerably.
Whichever route you take, cool the coffee before assembling or it will melt the ice on contact and dilute the drink. Build in the order the recipe gives — chocolate sauce in the bottom of the glass, then ice, then milk, then the coffee poured over — and you get the layered look before you stir it together. The homemade version of the sauce is what makes this worth doing over a bottled syrup: 1/3 cup of cocoa powder, 1/2 cup of sugar and 3/4 cup of water simmered until smooth, with a teaspoon of vanilla and a pinch of salt stirred in off the heat. That pinch of salt is not a rounding error — it is what stops the sauce tasting flat and one-note sweet. It keeps in a mason jar in the fridge, so one batch covers a week of drinks at about 164 calories a glass.
Let me know what you think of this recipe in the comments! If you’ve tried this recipe, be sure to post it on social media and tag it with #cookingwithanadi and mention me @cooking.with.anadi. Thank you!
Recipe by Anadi Misra
Beat the heat with a creamy Iced Chocolate Latte that comes together in minutes. Rich, refreshing, and easy to make at home, this cold coffee drink is your new warm-weather essential.
Stovetop
Rate this recipe ✦
5 min
Prep
10 min
Cook
15 min
Total
1
glasses
easy
Level
Ingredients
Ingredients
Tap any quantity to scale
For the chocolate sauce
For the iced latte
- espressoShop →
- (120 ml) milk
- ice cubes(as needed)
- (60 ml) chocolate sauce (as described above) · make your ownShop →
Instructions
For the chocolate sauce
- 1
In a saucepan, add the cocoa powder, sugar and water and turn on the heat. Whisk well and warm the mixture until it starts to steam and the chocolate syrup is smooth. Once the syrup has thickened to your liking, remove from the heat and transfer to a mason jar.
In a saucepan, add the cocoa powder, sugar and water and turn on the heat. Whisk well and warm the mixture until it starts to steam and the chocolate syrup is smooth. Once the syrup has thickened to your liking, remove from the heat and transfer to a mason jar.
- 2
Add the vanilla extract and a pinch of salt.
Add the vanilla extract and a pinch of salt.
For the iced latte
- 1
Prepare the espresso using an espresso machine. Alternatively, prepare espresso-like coffee using a French press or the specialty setting of your coffee machine.
Prepare the espresso using an espresso machine. Alternatively, prepare espresso-like coffee using a French press or the specialty setting of your coffee machine.
- 2
Add ¼–⅓ cup of chocolate sauce to the bottom of the cup.
Add ¼–⅓ cup of chocolate sauce to the bottom of the cup.
- 3
Add ice cubes, followed by the milk and then pour in the coffee. Stir and enjoy!
Add ice cubes, followed by the milk and then pour in the coffee. Stir and enjoy!
Nutrition per glass
164
Calories
5g
Protein
28g
Carbs
5g
Fat
2g
Fiber
25g
Sugar
513mg
Sodium
Did you make this recipe? Tag @cooking.with.anadi on Instagram and hashtag it #cookingwithanadi
Tested & written in Anadi’s kitchen
Recipe history
- April 16, 2026 — Reworked and refreshed for the 2026 relaunch — new photography, restructured and standardized ingredients & instructions.
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