Chocolate Salami Recipe — Zestful Kitchen (2024)

Bite in to this irresistible Chocolate Salami recipe! A no-bake sensation that seamlessly blends the richness of a chocolate ganache with crisp cookies, dried fruit and nuts. Hailing from Southern Europe, this chocolate dessert is as visually appealing as it is delicious. Plus, it’s perfect for impressing guests or packaging up and giving as a holiday gift!

What is Chocolate Salami

Chocolate Salami is a delightful dessert that, despite its name, doesn’t actually contain any meat. It’s a no-bake chocolate dessert made by combining crushed biscuits with a ganache-like chocolate base, dried fruits and nuts.

The mixture is then rolled into a log shape, resembling a salami, and chilled until firm. Right before slicing, the chocolate salami is then rolled in confectioners sugar to give it a true salami-like look. (If you like a no-bake chocolate dessert, try my Dark Chocolate Truffles, they’re infused with red wine!)

Each slice has a dusty white exterior, silky-smooth chocolate interior speckled with pops of color from the cookies, nuts and fruit.

Variations of this chocolate confection can be found all over Europe. In some places it is made with cocoa powder instead of chocolate (Greece, Italy and portugal). other places use sweetened condensed milk (Estonia and France) and others use bar chocolate and cream (Romanian) which my recipe resembles the most.

Ingredients You’ll Need

• Dried Fruit: I recommend using dried and sweetened cranberries. Dried apricots, orange peel, candied ginger, or cherries all work well. Just be sure to chop them!
• Orange liqueur: this is optional, but a dash of Cointreau or grand Marnier adds a great citrusy flavor. You can up 1 tablespoon orange juice instead.
• Crisp cookies: traditionally vanilla tea cookies are used, but for this recipe I recommend you make it with Biscoff cookies. They’re just as crisp but add an extra touch of spice.
• Bar chocolate: you’ll need 4 ounces of bittersweet chocolate and 2 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate. Do not use chocolate chips. If you like really bitter chocolate desserts, you can use all bittersweet chocolate. And if you like chocolate on the sweeter side, use all semi-sweet chocolate.
• Heavy cream: you’ll need ⅓ cup. Do not use half-and-half or milk.
• Kosher salt
• Pistachios: I recommend using toasted unsalted shelled pistachios (I buy them raw and toast them myself in the oven at 350ºF for 8–12 minutes). You can also use slivered almonds, hazelnuts or cashews. Use a nut that is either light in color or green—if you use pecans or walnuts you won’t see them in the sliced cookies.
• Confectioners’ sugar: aka powdered sugar. You just need ½ cup, or enough to coat the outside of the “salami.”

How to Make (so easy!)

1. The first step is to hydrate the dried cranberries. Add the orange liqueur to the cranberries then microwave for 30 seconds. Give the mixture a stir and set aside to cool.
2. Break the cookies up into roughly 3/4-inch pieces. They should be chunky—not finely broken.





3. Melt the chopped chocolate with the cream in the microwave. Melt the chocolate slowly! Heat it in 30-second increments on 50-percent power until nearly fully melted. Stir the mixture until fully melted.





4. Mix the cookies, dried fruit, pistachios and a pinch of salt into the chocolate.



5. Divide the chocolate in half between two pieces of parchment. Roll the chocolate up like a salami and twist the ends to ensure no chocolate squishes out.
6. Chill the chocolate salami in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.





7. Unroll the chocolate salami and dust with confectioners’ sugar—rolling and rubbing it in until coated. Slice the chocolate salami and serve.

How to Store Chocolate Salami

Store chocolate salami wrapped in parchment paper or plastic wrap in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Does it Freeze Well?

Chocolate Salami can be frozen for up to 1 month. If you don’t need to freeze it, I don’t recommend it. But it’ll work in a pinch if you need to make this ahead of time.

Wrap the chilled log in plastic wrap followed by a layer of foil.

Allow the log to thaw overnight in the refrigerator before coating in confectioners’ sugar, slicing and serving.

Does the Alcohol Cook Out?

Some of the alcohol cooks out, but not all of it. If you want to ensure there is no alcohol in this recipe, use 1 tablespoon fresh orange juice instead of the 2 tablespoons or orange liqueur. Drain off any excess orange juice before stiring the fruit mixture into the chocolate.

More Chocolate Desserts to Try

• If you’re looking for the ultimate brownie, you gotta try these Olive Oil Brownies. They’re deeply chocolate and perfectly fudgy!
• Nothing says I love you like a batch of homemade Chocolate Truffles! Especially ones infused with red wine!
• The perfect shortbread cookie is one dipped in chocolate! Try these Dark Chocolate Dipped Hazelnut Shortbread Cookies.
• Up the ante on chocolate chip cookies with these Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies.
• Combine your love of a chewy, spiced snickerdoodle with cocoa powder and you get a Chocolate Snickerdoodle Cookie that is out of this world.
• Peppermint Cookies are another must-make festive holiday cookie. These are crisp and go down way too easy.