No Bake Chocolate Cheesecake
Creamy no-bake cheesecake made with dark chocolate that stays smooth but sets up firm in the fridge with a firm mousse like texture.
I have a chocolate cheesecake with hazelnut and oreo crust on the site that I will only make once in a while. It’s decadent and delicious and I’m prone to eating the slices at any time of the day, sometimes without a fork. It’s also a little more work than I’m usually up for, especially during the hotter months when I don’t want to have the oven on for long.
I thought, why not make something that’s quicker, easier and still just as chocolatey and creamy? A no-bake chocolate cheesecake!
Recipe Origins
Your basic no-bake cheesecake is fairly simple: cream cheese, sugar, and heavy cream that has been whipped to stiff peaks. Powdered sugar is often used because it helps stabilize the filling so it’s easier to slice. Sometimes sour cream is added to deepen the flavor and increase the overall ‘creaminess’ of the filling.
After I decided I wanted to make a recipe for a no-bake chocolate cheesecake, I scoured the internet to see how others had done it: were they adding cocoa or chocolate or a mix of both? Did they first make a ganache then whip it and add it to the cream cheese?
Ultimately I spotted a trend: beat the cream cheese and sugar, add melted chocolate and separately whip the heavy cream then fold it into the filling. But after some tests, I found I didn’t really need to do that and dirty another bowl; the heavy cream can be whipped after adding it to the cream cheese mixture; and the cheesecake still sets up nicely.
Recipe Ingredients
Chocolate sandwich cookies (oreos): we’ll grind up the whole cookies with the cream. You can absolutely use something else like graham crackers, digestives, or whatever you like but in those cases (if there’s no filling) you’ll need to add a bit more butter to compensate for the lack of cream. Add a tablespoon at a time until you can squeeze the crumbs and they hold shape but are still dry and don’t leave an overly oily residue on your fingers.
Butter: unsalted, cold is fine. Adjust the amount needed depending on what cookie you’ve used.
Cream cheese: firm and full-fat cream cheese brought to a warm room temperature. This will ensure we don’t have to beat it as long to remove any lumps.
Sugar: I use fine granulated sugar because the chocolate sets this up nicely enough that I don’t think we need the powdered sugar. If you like you can use brown sugar for a little extra flavor.
Salt: fine sea salt. Use half the amount if using table salt.
Vanilla: pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste.
Sour cream: full fat and ideally at room temperature (but it’s ok if it’s cold).
Chocolate: semi-sweet or dark chocolate of 55-78% cocoa solids. Not chips. More on this below.
Heavy cream: or heavy whipping cream. It should be cold, straight from the fridge.
How to make No-Bake Chocolate Cheesecake
Preheat the oven and line the pan with a bottom sheet of parchment paper (for easy removal).
Grind the oreos, mix with the butter and press into the springform pan in an even layer on the bottom, and up the sides as best you can.
Bake the crust and cool:
Room temperature cream cheese is essential. Press it into the bowl with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon (this helps remove lumps):
Beat the cream cheese with the sour cream and flavorings:
Melt the chocolate, then briefly cool it:
Stir into the cream cheese mixture:
Add the heavy cream and whip:
Pour into pan and chill:
What chocolate should I use for a no-bake chocolate cheesecake?
First, do not to use chocolate chips. Chips have stabilizers in them to stop them from melting so they hold shape in a chocolate chip cookie – we are melting our chocolate here so it’s irrelevant. More importantly, those stabilizers get in the way of good flavor.
Second, consider cocoa solid percentage: milk chocolate is low in cocoa solids and has added sugars and milk. It’s softer so it’ll get in the way of the cheesecake setting properly. Also, specifically in a recipe like this, the chocolate ‘flavor’ will be weaker because there’s already so little of it in milk chocolate and you’ll be mixing it with a lot of additional dairy.
I think semi-sweet or dark chocolate is best here (and by that I mean dark chocolate but you do you): anything with a cocoa solid percentage that’s at least 55% will work well to stabilize the filling but a darker chocolate will give you the added benefit of a deeper chocolate flavor.
Make ahead and Storage Notes
This can be made the day of serving if you’re making it in the morning and serving it in the evening. If you want to make it a full day or two ahead, go for it but don’t top it with a whipped cream or a meringue until the day of serving.
Leftovers will keep in the fridge for about 2-3 days.
Topping the Cheesecake
In the photos and video you’ll see me top this with a chocolate whipped cream: 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, 3 tablespoons dutch process cocoa, ¼ cup sugar, dash vanilla and a pinch of salt all set in a food processor and run on high until thickened, about 3 minutes. You can also just make a vanilla whipped cream (skip the cocoa) or get fancy and make a swiss meringue then torch it.
Recipe for No-Bake Chocolate Cheesecake
No Bake Chocolate Cheesecake
Ingredients
Oreo Crust
- 350 g or 2 ½ cups ground oreos
- ¼ cup butter plus 1 tablespoon
Chocolate Cream Cheese Filling
- 453 g or 2 bricks cream cheese completely softened to room temperature
- 100 g or ½ cup fine granulated sugar
- ½ tsp fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 120 g or ½ cup sour cream
- 200 g semi-sweet chocolate chopped finely
- 240 g or 1 cup heavy cream or heavy whipping cream
Method
Make the crust
- Note: Only the crust is baked; this is done to set the crust so it slices neatly.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Set a sheet of parchment paper over the bottom of a 8 or 9 inch springform pan then buckle the side piece to close it.
- Melt the butter and stir with the ground oreos until the mixture resembles wet sand. Press the crust into the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Use a ⅓ cup measuring cup to help you pack in the bits into an even layer.
- Bake the crust for 10 minutes. When it comes out of the oven, if it has bubbles in any areas use the same measuring cup to press it back into place. Leave aside to cool fully.
Make the filling
- Set the cream cheese in a large bowl, and use the back of a rubber spatula or wooden spoon to press it into the bowl and remove any lumps. Add the sugar, salt and vanilla and use a hand mixer to beat until smooth. Add the sour cream and beat to combine. Set aside.
- Chop the chocolate very finely and set it in a heatproof bowl. Warm it in the microwave for about 1 minute, then stir, then return it to the microwave for another 30 seconds. Stir and if the chocolate is mostly melted, then allow the heat from the melted chocolate and the bowl to melt the rest and stir until it’s smooth (if not, give it another 15-20 seconds in the microwave then stir until smooth). Leave aside to cool briefly.
- Pour the chocolate over the cream cheese mixture and beat to just combine. Add the heavy cream and beat on low (or stir) until the batter is well mixed. Pour the filling into the crust and smooth it into an even layer.
- Set the cheesecake in the fridge to chill for 4-12 hours, until firm.
Did you make this recipe?
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It was delicious, I put chocolate ganache on top with chopped nuts around the edge.
However the base was far too sweet so I will use plain arrowroot or chocolate ripple biscuits next time and not bake it. ( it stuck to the bottom, I guess because all the cream in the biscuits)
A wonderful egg-free dessert added to our Thanksgiving feast. Thank you Sam!
No bake cheesecake – step 1, preheat oven. Uhhhhh?
The crust is baked to set it so it isn’t overly crumbly when sliced. The cheesecake itself (the filling) has no eggs and is not baked, hence the name.
It’s a 10 out of 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️because an “I don’t like cheesecake” person asked for another slice and the recipe! Best compliment I’ve gotten!
I made it! I halved this recipe by girlmath and a bit of good ol give it a try faith and it came out perfectly! I ended up using a chocolate nut pie shell which is not very deep and it came out like a charm. I did a whipped cream topping sans cocoa and shaved chocolate on top. It looked pretty and tasted delishhhh. Hello summer no oven baking! Thanks Sam and another hit in the books from you!
Can you halve the ingredients? So instead of a tall cake – it will e a short or low cheesecake.. Any recs if halving would be welcome.
You could halve the recipe to make a smaller cheesecake, like in a 5 or 6 inch round pan. A loaf pan might work too.
This is a good recipe for an easy no-bake cheesecake. I used a 60% cocoa, which ended up being a tad too dark for my taste. Still a good recipe, easy to follow, and quick prep. I did a vanilla whipped cream then on a whim added some Nutella to it, which I think went nicely with the base and chocolate cookie crust.
I needed a dessert sure to impress for a holiday gathering, so where did I turn? To Sam, of course! 🙂 This cheesecake was super simple to throw together and oh my goodness, it was so worth it. It was so smooth and creamy, with an amazing rich chocolate flavor. It was not dense like a baked cheesecake, yet not exactly light and airy like other no-bake cheesecakes I’ve had. I just topped mine with plain whipped cream, although the chocolate option does sound lovely! I might experiment next time with a layer of ganache on the bottom… we’ll see though since it’s pretty much perfect already. I am keeping this recipe for sure and see myself making it quite a bit in the future!
What is the topping?
Chocolate whipped cream. You read how to do it if you scroll up to where it says “topping the cheesecake”
So delicious and so easy to make! The filling set up nice and thick, and the filling to crust ratio was perfect. This is a nice rich chocolate dessert with little effort, and it’s nice that it can be made ahead. We topped with plain whipped cream and chocolate shavings and found that to be a great balance!
Tried to watch your video. Unfortunately it was riddled with ads and after each ad it moved to another video, showing only about 10 sec of each. Frustrating! Is there anywhere on your site where I could access the entire video? I’d like to make this cheesecake but I’m not clear about several of the steps.
Hi Maureen, the video is hosted by the company that manages the ads on my site (which generate an income for me to do this as my daily job). When you first hit play an ad starts and after 15 seconds you can get to my instructional video. At around thirty seconds into playing the video, it will give you two options: NEXT and STAY. If you click ‘stay’ it will continue playing the video without any more ads. I hope that helps. Also if you have some questions about specific written steps please let me know and I can try to clarify further.
Pan size?
8 or 9 inch
What is 200g of chocolate, 55 to 78% dark chocolate related to the size of the bar I have to buy?
This looks really good but I don’t understand the weight in relationship to cups.
Hi Jill! The % refers to the cocoa solids percentage, so a milk chocolate usually has 40% or less, a semi-sweet has 45-55% and a dark will usually be above 60 (it’s usually around 70%). When you go to the chocolate aisle in the grocery store (NOT the baking aisle, those will just have bittersweet) you’ll see a variety of chocolates and they’ll have a percentages on them.
As for the 200g, that refers to the weight or how much goes into the recipe. I have it in grams because that is the most accurate measurement. When you buy a bar, it will have the weight on it as well, they often come in 100g or 125g.
love it
Looks like fun recipe to make. I’d use chocolate pie shell & go from there. Thx