Add unsweetened cocoa powder in these everyday type of recipes like oatmeal, peanut butter, spice rubs and more for a hit of chocolate flavor!

It’s Healthy Kitchen Hacks Wednesday – the day we share our favorite time-saving kitchen tricks and cooking shortcuts to help you make healthy and delicious meals.

You can see all our Healthy Kitchen Hacks here. To get exclusive healthy kitchen hacks – only available to our email subscribers – sign up HERE.

Now…onto today’s featured Healthy Kitchen Hack:

5 Cool Ways To Use Cocoa Powder

For years and years, I really only used unsweetened cocoa powder for baking and making chocolate pudding.

Until I whipped up this Banana Mocha Frappe one day and made it just about every day for a year straight. Then it quickly became my go-to to add a hint of chocolate flavor to many everyday things like:

1) Cocoa Oatmeal - I usually mix in about 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder per ¼ cup of uncooked oatmeal (after it's cooked) along with a drizzle of maple syrup. And if you are feeling extra fancy (and want to impress the kids), try these Berry Chocolate Oatmeal Parfaits.

2) Chocolate Peanut Butter - Grab a jar of your favorite peanut butter and mix in 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder for every ¾ cup (so for a typical 16-ounce jar, that's about 2 ½ tablespoons.) Sometimes, I'll mix in a tablespoon of honey, too. YUM.

3) Chickpea Snacks - In a previous Healthy Kitchen Hacks' post, Serena showed how easy it is to make Crispy Chickpea Snacks and they were so delish, we decided to include them in our 30-Minute Mediterranean Diet Cookbook (affiliate link!) One of my favorite variations is mixing them with ¼ teaspoon cocoa powder and ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika.

4) Mocha Spice Rub (for Chicken, Pork, Salmon, Scallops and Tofu) - This is a riff on my 3-Ingredient Coffee Spice Rub - with an additional 1 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder added to the mix of ground coffee, brown sugar and black pepper. SO good and SO easy.

5) Chocolate Smoothies - Here's the recipe that started it all. It's so simple and these days I also throw in some peanut butter powder for some protein and because - well, once again - peanut butter + chocolate.

How do you use unsweetened cocoa powder in your kitchen?