My kids go through chocolate sauce at an alarming rate. At about $6 for a 700ml container I figured I could do better both on the price side and the contents. Searching the internet brought up a lot of options. I wanted simple and cheap. That meant cocoa, sugar and water. No milk, butter or dark chocolate brought the price down. I then modified from there

Ingredients

Ingredient	Last Purchase Price	Cost in Recipe
1 cup Cocoa (~125g)	$5.50 /500g bag	$1.38
1 1/4 cup sugar (~280g)	$13 / 4.54kg bag	$0.80
1 1/2 cup water	Free	Free

Instructions

Mix everything together in a pot over medium heat. Keep stirring or it will burn to the bottom. When it comes to a boil it is done. Remove from the heat and let cool. I store mine in glass jar in the fridge.

Total Cost $2.18 for about 500ml so about $3.05 for the equivalent 700ml bottle. That makes it about half the cost. Its very easy to make. You can vary the ingredients. I cut down a bit on the sugar and upped the cocoa. It makes it more chocolatey than the store bought. We use it mostly in chocolate milk but it also works great as a topping for ice cream. There is also no artificial flavors or colors in it so that’s a victory as well.