14 Fruits That Pair Perfectly With Chocolate

Fruit and chocolate have been paramours for as long as chefs have had their hands on both ingredients. These pairings have their roots in culinary history ever since cacao came to Europe in the 16th century. Since then, chefs and chocolatiers alike have been coming up with endless ways to serve chocolate and fruit together.

We've spoken with experts in the field about all their ideas to combine chocolate with fruit. "Anything goes," says Rachel McKinley, executive chocolatier at Winfield's Chocolate Bar. "It's an area ripe with creativity and imagination."

Each fruit and chocolate pairing can result in wildly different flavor profiles and mouthfeel. A tart berry can cut through the rich smoothness of a chocolate bar, while a vividly sweet fruit can accentuate a chocolate's innate aromatic qualities. According to Dawn Nita, founder and chocolatier of DWN Chocolate, the best fruit pairing "all depends on personal preference." However, some fruits seem tailor-made for chocolate, and with the help of our chocolate experts, we've put together a list of both crowd favorite fruit and chocolate pairings and underrated combinations worth your attention.

This classic pairing is popular for a reason. Whole strawberries covered in melted chocolate is a classically romantic pairing that traces its origins back to the '60s, after all, and it's the perfect size to pop into your mouth without having to bust out the paring knife. Its recognizable taste also allows it to stand out against both white chocolate and dark chocolate.

According to Rachel McKinley, strawberries, like most fruits, aren't limited in the endless ways they can be served with chocolate. "There are a lot of ways you can play with chocolate and fruits to have new flavor adventures," McKinley shares. "For example, you can mix freeze-dried strawberry fruit powder with melted dark chocolate to make a fruity chocolatey ice cream sauce, or you can drizzle dark chocolate over a strawberry topped vanilla cupcake and you are using the same toolbox of flavors."

Strawberries are innately sweet, so they pair well with chocolate-flavored desserts such as cakes, tarts, or bars. You can also choose to offset the strawberry's sweetness by pairing it with dark chocolate. In turn, the bright, tart notes of a strawberry can also highlight the subtle flavorings of your preferred chocolate of choice.

Unlike a strawberry's spring sweetness, pineapples have a stronger tropical kick that's perfect for a warm summer day. Their bright, tart notes can cut through dark chocolate's bitter flavorings, adding a vivid twist that can really elevate a bar of plain chocolate. Because pineapples are especially juicy, boasting a moisture content of 86%, it's difficult to serve it fresh with chocolate as the chocolate might seize. Instead, Rachel McKinley suggests dipping the fruit in melted chocolate, or drizzling chocolate on top of pineapple instead. Freezing the pineapple before enrobing it with chocolate can also solve the moisture issue, and similarly to strawberries, freeze-drying pineapple into powder to couverture chocolate can produce a deliciously flavored chocolate confection.

You can also consider roasting pineapples with dark or milk chocolate. Because pineapples have such a high sugar concentration, the resulting dessert will caramelize, and all that sugar gets concentrated into a punch of flavor. Throw in some anise for some extra spice and you've got a perfect dessert to close a summer barbecue, a midday luncheon, or simply a boast-worthy treat rich with flavor.

Cherries paired with chocolate is perhaps the most mature-tasting combination of all on this list. Due to their promotion of blood flow and pheromone production, both cherries and chocolates have long been considered natural aphrodisiacs. Seduction value aside, though, the chocolate and cherry pairing have been highly recommended by both of our chocolate experts due to the cherry's naturally tart flavor and its compatibility with dark, bitter chocolate. World famous desserts have arisen from this famous pairing, one of the most prominent examples being the decadent Black Forest cake. Cherries are also a favorite fruit to render down into liquor or liqueur for boozy desserts and drinks, many of which can introduce a sensual, playful note to dark chocolate or milk chocolate products. Chopping up dried cherries and chocolate bars can also be a delicious way of giving bitter dark chocolate an extra sour twang.

Sour cherries can also be further worked to achieve a variety of new and interesting textures, such as whipping freeze-dried cherry powder into a creamy mousse, cooking a sour cherry ganache, or creating a cherry tart shell. Rachel McKinley suggests using pâte de fruits, a cuttable jam that often acts as a layer in fine bonbons. Again, there is no shortage of options when pairing cherries and chocolate, but nothing beats a romantic classic: dipping whole, pitted cherries in melted milk chocolate.

When pairing strawberries or cherries with chocolate, the resulting desserts usually bear a sensual connotation. However, pairing bananas and chocolate produces pure American nostalgia. Ever since the first frozen banana stand opened in Orange County, California nearly 80 years ago, the chocolate banana pop has been a classic American dessert staple for both children and adults. It's a guilt-free snack due to the banana's high amounts of potassium and fiber and the dark chocolate's antioxidant and mineral content, plus it's less messy due to the banana's slightly drier texture.

Because bananas are also a known substitute for a multitude of ingredients in baking, such as eggs, sugar, butter, and oil, you'll see more banana and chocolate pairings pop in the baking realm of cooking. Compared to the bright and bold flavors of strawberries and pineapples, bananas have a milder flavor that can easily be incorporated into pastries or confections, but they also boast a high sugar content that makes it perfect for caramelization. According to Rachel McKinley, there's really no shortage of ways to pair banana and chocolate. It's a classic pairing. Chocolate cakes with roasted banana garnish, banana splits with drizzled chocolate syrup, banana cream in chocolate truffles, the Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream flavor ... the list goes on!

Another summery fruit, peaches have a lovely, refreshing flavor that is excellently elevated by sweeter chocolates such as white chocolate or light milk chocolate. Its softly sweet taste might not hold up well against intense dark chocolate, but peaches' silky texture and subtle flavorings make it a great ingredient for chocolate confectionery and pastries. A peach macaron often features a peach and white chocolate ganache, for example, and some peach cobblers use chocolate cake mix as a starting base.

Peaches are another fruit that has a high sugar content, which makes it perfect for roasting, caramelizing, or turning into syrup. As a result, they're also a go-to fruit ingredient when making fruit chocolate bars. One of our experts, Dawn Nita, has shared an example of this fruit incorporation with her "dreamy peach raspberry fizz bar." Peaches can be fully blended into chocolate bars, that is, fully incorporated so that the bar is one consistent texture, or they can be added as chopped pieces depending on your preference for texture. Either way, the result is sure to be subtly sweet, decadent, and refreshing.

The mild taste and subtle sweetness of pears might be deceptive at first glance — when pitted against dark, intense chocolates, it seems more reasonable that tarter fruits pair better than pears. However, pears boast a longer recorded culinary history of being served alongside chocolate accompaniments than most fruits on this list. In 1864, celebrated French chef Auguste Escoffier created the Poire belle Hélène, a dessert made from poached pears in syrup, ice cream, and a generous drizzling of decadent chocolate syrup. This traditional dish is still enjoyed today, and the rich dark chocolate adornment on the starring pears presents a beautiful visual contrast against the golden flesh of the pears.

Similar to peaches, pears are another mild-tasting fruit that's best suited for lighter chocolates. Rachel McKinley recommends pairing pears with either white chocolate or a lighter milk chocolate to make the best use out of the pear's subtler flavors. Depending on its variety, a pear's texture varies widely from silky smoothness to a crunchy crispness, which could be important when coming up with recipes that utilize them. A chocolate pear upside down cake will ask for soft, fudgy pears, for example, but baking some pear and chocolate bark will require you to dry some crunchy pears to pair with crispy nuts and spices.

Both of our chocolate experts agree that berries are some of the best fruits to pair with chocolates, and raspberries are no exception. Their puckish, sour flavors are intense by themselves, and serving them with dark chocolate further elevates them in a symbiotic experience. Contrasting the tart notes of a raspberry against the earthy taste of dark chocolate often results in a rich, decadent combination in contrast to other berries, which are often sweeter in flavor. A raspberry's bouncy texture can also serve as an interesting foil to the smoothness unique to chocolate, or other varying textured foods such as nuts or sprinkles in confectionery.

Because raspberries tend to taste much more tart than other berries such as strawberries or blueberries, this fruit and chocolate combination can be polarizing for those with a sweet tooth, due to this pairing's reliance on subtler, more sophisticated flavorings. In short, it's not a super sweet combination, especially since raspberries are best complemented by dark chocolate, which can taste bitter to some people. Culinary techniques can easily bypass this for those looking for a sweet treat featuring this pairing. Raspberries are a common garnish on cakes and other desserts to their attractive color and shapes, so they're well suited for baking, and, and raspberries can be a delicious pop of color in a piece of chocolate bark or chocolate bar. Raspberry and dark chocolate truffles are another tasteful marriage of this fruit and chocolate; it's a match made in heaven.

This flavor combination is a pairing that both of our chocolate experts, Rachel McKinley and Dawn Nita, consider one of their top favorites. The majority of chocolate enjoyers would agree with them; this pairing is a staple of the dessert world since its introduction into high European society in the 20th century. Orange slices enrobed in melted chocolate, chocolate bars flavored with orange zest, dense orange and chocolate tarts, crêpes suzette, orange soda with chocolate ice cream ... there's no end to the amount of ways you can serve an orange and chocolate bar together.

What makes this combination so toothsome is the sweetness of the citrus cutting through the richness and chocolate. The essential oils of the orange blend well with the aromatic compounds in the chocolate. It's great with just about every flavor of chocolate for this reason; sweet oranges pair lovely with white chocolate, they're delicious with light milk chocolate, and some sour orange zest can be a sophisticated addition to dark chocolate. No matter where you look, there's always going to be some new culinary invention featuring this classic fruit and chocolate pairing.

Kiwis and chocolates are perhaps one of the most underrated fruit and chocolate pairings in the culinary sphere. This is underserved, because kiwis have a delicate, almost floral aroma that makes it perfect as a chocolate accompaniment. Similarly to pears and peaches, kiwis have a milder taste that makes it difficult to pair with intense chocolates like dark chocolate or sweet milk chocolate, but freezing or drying sliced pieces of kiwi can help the fruit's tart flavor stand out.

Due to their colorful, unique shape, kiwis are a popular topping for fruit-heavy desserts such as tarts and galettes. Adding a dark chocolate garnish or base to these pastries can draw out the kiwi's natural flavor. Kiwis are also chock-full of vitamins and nutrients, so they can be a great low-effort and healthy snack when frozen and dipped in chocolate as a fruit pop, or blended together with chocolate powder and other fruits to make a smoothie. For a delicious crunch of texture, dry some kiwi and add it to dark chocolate for a tangy, slightly sour burst of flavor.

This combination is perhaps the healthiest in this entire list. Individually, pomegranates have been well-known superfoods since ancient times, and, according to Dawn Nita, dark chocolate is chock-full of antioxidants, minerals, and flavonoids. Concentrating pomegranate juice further heightens these benefits, which makes it a perfect addition to chocolate pastries and confectionery such as truffles, bonbons, and chocolate bars. It's also not unusual to see pomegranate arils paired with dark chocolate as a health-focused snack, especially one that boosts antioxidant intake. Studies have actually proven that pomegranate juices can activate the antioxidants found in white chocolate, but in terms of taste, the tangy taste of pomegranate seeds best suits dark chocolate.

The duo shines best in simple pairing methods; chocolate and pomegranate bark is especially popular due to the varied texture of the arils peppering the flat dark chocolate and the tart bursts of sweetness cutting through the chocolate taste. Pomegranates are also very visually appealing, which makes their seeds an excellent stand-out garnish for dark-colored chocolate-based desserts. Sprinkling a little sea salt to add a little accent of umami also does wonders for bringing out the contrasting flavors of chocolate and this unique fruit.

This delightfully elfin berry continues the family trend of wonderful berry-and-chocolate combinations. Long celebrated in European folklore for their connotations with the natural and magical world, this herald of summer brings a variety of flavors to pair with different selections of chocolate. Pairing its puckish taste with milk chocolate can produce a delicate intermingling of flavors that's great for hot summer days. Think of blackberry and chocolate tarts, blackberry and chocolate muffins, or blackberry cobblers drizzled in strings of milk chocolate.

Alternatively, pairing blackberries with white chocolate will produce a fun contrast of flavors. The super sweet denseness of white chocolate can be cut through with the bright acidity of a blackberry jam or compote. And of course, the reliable bitterness of dark chocolate always pairs wonderfully with any fruit in the berry family, the blackberry included. Blackberries and dark chocolate can produce a luxurious mouthfeel and delicious aftertaste reminiscent of a sweet liquor. Whichever pairing you choose to use, blackberries never fail to complement a delicious bar of chocolate.

Lemon tends to get overlooked when pairing citrus with chocolate due to orange's tangier flavor melding well with chocolate, but it still holds its own quite proudly in the culinary sphere. Lemons are far more sour and acidic than oranges, so instead of using lemon juice directly with chocolate, chocolatiers like one of our chocolate experts Dawn Nita would use what are called fruit inclusions in their cooking process. Lemon curd, ganache, and creme are popular inclusions to use, and Nita shares that she uses candied lemon peel as an inclusion in her own chocolate. This addition gives chocolate a refreshing taste reminiscent of the coolness of early spring.

Lemons are also great ingredients to use in baking with chocolate. Marbled chocolate lemon bars are an easy finger-food dessert to serve, and again you can use the sea salt garnish trick to add a little additional savoriness to give this treat some additional depth. A lemon and chocolate cake is a perfect spring or summer dessert that can be further heightened with some whipped cream, vanilla essence, and even coffee to heighten the chocolate flavor against the bright lemon flavor. Not to mention, lemon rinds are a beautiful shade of canary-yellow, which makes them so visually appealing to add on top of a dark chocolate surface.

Blackcurrants are a fairly strong and sour fruit with an earthy sweetness that goes fantastic with chocolate. Dawn Nita describes its signature flavor as being "bright, puckery, but warm," and shared with us how she pairs this berry with cardamom in her cassis cardamom chocolate bar. On their own, blackcurrants have a very strong taste, but transforming them into inclusions similar to how chocolatiers use lemons vastly boosts their usability. They're perfect for serving with dark chocolate, providing a similar flavor profile to that of blackberries or licorice, but with a more sour tang. Adding spices can help contrast the blackcurrants' aromatic qualities against chocolate, such as cardamom, star anise, mint, and juniper.

All of these combinations result in vastly different flavor profiles, which makes blackcurrants a versatile ingredient to pair with chocolate. Most chocolatiers agree that a very dark and bitter chocolate brings out this berry's unique musky flavor the best, though there's always room for experimentation with other chocolate types. White chocolate and blackcurrant ice cream can be a deliciously tart treat, and white chocolate cookies with blackcurrant jelly is a must-have for picnics or nature outings. Regardless of how you use them, blackcurrants produce a gorgeous purple color when cooked, which can contrast beautifully with white chocolate!

Cranberries and chocolate are a perfect match for each other, especially in the winter holiday season. Cranberries are a perfect balance of piquant and sweet, which makes it a great accompaniment in white and dark chocolate. Dried cranberries also offer a bit of chew when included in chocolate brittle or bark, and cranberry jam or ganache makes it a bright and vivid center for chocolate truffles and bonbons. They can also feature proudly on tarts.

Like other slightly sharp-tasting fruits on this list, cranberry flavors mix well with chocolate-based desserts. Fudgy brownies or blondies dotted with fresh or dried cranberries are a sensory delight, for example. Meanwhile, chocolate cakes infused with cranberry juice or jam get an extra oomph from the fruit's vivid sweetness. Fresh cranberries themselves have a firm, slightly crunchy texture, which can vary the smooth texture of chocolate, but Dawn Nita shares that she tends to use dried cranberries in her work as well. Whatever your preference, it's undeniable that cranberries with chocolate are a natural holiday enhancer with their vivid red color, familial connotations, and overall nostalgically sweet flavor.