The Best Way To Store Leftover Melted Chocolate

If you've ever had to melt chocolate for a recipe, then you may have been left with the question of what to do with the leftovers — after all, who wants to throw away perfectly good chocolate? Lucky for us, there's an easy way to store that leftover melted chocolate.

Here's what you do: As soon as you know how much melted chocolate is leftover, pour it out onto a plate or a baking sheet that has been lined with parchment paper. It's important that you do this right away so that the melted chocolate doesn't harden in a bowl. Additionally, it's also essential that you let it spread out, which is why you use a plate or a baking sheet so that it can be easily chopped up for future use instead of getting too thick. Finally, all you have to do next is pop it in the fridge for a bit. Once it has fully hardened, then transfer the chocolate from the parchment paper to a Ziplock bag. Store the Ziplock in the fridge for up to a few months.

Now that you have saved the leftover melted chocolate and hardened it for safekeeping, one question remains: What do you do with it? Well, the now-hardened chocolate is perfect for chopping up into small pieces — kind of like homemade chocolate chips. With this in mind, there are countless ways to use up that leftover chocolate so that none of it goes to waste.

For example, you can use the chopped-up chocolate pieces in place of the chocolate chips in ultimate fudgy brownies. Or, how about using them for easy chocolate chunk cookies from scratch? Plus, there are plenty of pastries that could use the addition of some chocolate chunks — banana bread or chocolate chip muffins, for example. You can even add it atop an ice cream sundae for a chocolatey, crunchy topping. Finally, if you're someone who likes to snack on chocolate chips by themselves, then all of this leftover chocolate can simply go toward your chocolate-snacking needs.