Vegan Chocolate Cream Cold Brew
by Olivia Biermann
on May 18, 2022 (updated Dec 19, 2025)
This vegan chocolate cream cold brew is rich and refreshing. The kind of drink that turns a gloomy morning into the highlight of your day. The cold brew is smooth and bold, the homemade syrup adds a balanced sweetness and the silky chocolate foam tops is all off for a creamy finish. Quick to put together and tastes like you ordered it at a cafe!
This is my kind of drink. I drink it all the time now, but when I first craved some of the earlier releases like the TikTok viral Starbucks drink, I knew I had rush home and get to work even though I had no idea where to start. Turns out, It was quick and easy, and now I can’t stop making it all season long because it hits that rare balance of cool cream and chocolatey richness… Not to mention coffee!
I’ve been obsessed with coffee based drinks, hot and cold for at least a decade. And I’ve been recreating them to be vegan almost just as long, so taking this coffee drink from fun idea to reliable morning staple was a passion project for me.
Why this has the chain stores beat
Coffees and cold brews at cafes are convenient, sure. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; they lack the homemade touch. Too much mass produced syrups, never the right brand of plant-based milk, and often rushed out the door. I like my cold brew to take time, because you can taste the difference. And by time I mean only about about 10 minutes out of your day!
What a lot of people miss when they make an elevated homemade coffee shop drink is that texture and temperature matter as much as taste, and I think it’s important to dial that in. That might sound obvious for a coffee drinker but get the ice-to-brew balance just right, the chocolate foam sitting proud on top and not limp to make an unforgettable morning drink.
A trick you probably haven’t tried
Something you may already know, warm liquids don’t always foam properly in my experience(except for high end machine milk brothers. Cold liquids foam like a dream. I love to chill both my liquids AND my brother just before frothing that chocolate cream into a luxurious mouthful whenever I can.
A taste test a day keeps the bad coffee away
After a dozen or two hot afternoon recipe tests, not to mention a good handful of family and friend taste-testers; a few truths about cold brew started to appear.
- The coffee itself matters in my opinion, no matter how much we want to try to ignore it and use whatever beans we have on hand! Every time I take the time to find a good brew, the entire drink lights up.
- The backbone to my cold brew recipes are almost always the syrup. Homemade syrup elevates everything and you can taste the difference.
- I want a cold foam that clings, floats, and melts beautifully into my cold drink. My foam texture matters to me and that means choosing your favourite non-dairy creamer(oat milk for me).
Vegan Chocolate Cream Cold Brew
- Prep Time: 3 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 8 minutes
- Yield: 1 drink + extra syrup
- Category: drinks
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This vegan chocolate cream cold brew is rich and refreshing. The kind of drink that turns a gloomy morning into the highlight of your day. The cold brew is smooth and bold, the homemade syrup adds a balanced sweetness and the silky chocolate foam tops is all off for a creamy finish. Quick to put together and tastes like you ordered it at a cafe!
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups cold brew coffee
- 1 cup ice
Vanilla Syrup:
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup boiling water
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Chocolate Cold Foam:
- 1/3 cup nondairy milk, creamer, etc
- 1 tbsp chocolate sauce
Instructions
- Make the vanilla syrup: Stir together the sugar and boiling water until sugar is dissolved. Add vanilla extract and set aside.
- Make the cold foam: In a glass, add the nondairy milk or creamer and chocolate sauce and use a hand held frother to froth lightly until it is thick and foamy.
- Make the drink: add 1-2 tbsp of vanilla syrup to your serving glass (start with 1 if you don’t like your coffee super sweet). Add cold brew. Add ice, then top with cold foam. Serve immediately.
Notes
How to make cold brew. Add 1 cup ground coffee to large pitcher or bowl. Add 3 cups water. Stir gently and then cover with plastic wrap or a reusable food cover wrap and let sit at room temperature for 12 hours (overnight). Strain the coffee through a mesh strainer lined with a piece of cheesecloth. You can also brew & strain it in a French press as it has a very fine mesh strainer that can strain out the coffee grounds.
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I am curious, could you make a big batch of the vanilla syrup? How long would it last?