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Dubai Chocolate is the latest sweet treat to go viral on social media, prompting countless DIY recipes, copycat products, and a growing number of private label options from major supermarkets. Here’s what you need to know, including where to find vegan Dubai Chocolate.
Dubai Chocolate traditionally combines milk chocolate, tahini paste, pistachio paste, and knafeh, a spun pastry dough popular throughout the Middle East. The pistachio and knafeh filling is flaky with a vibrant green color, and the chocolate shell often includes distinctive green marbling.
The recipe was originally created by Dubai’s FIX Dessert Chocolatier. Speaking to the New York Times earlier this year, founder Sarah Hamouda explained that a pregnancy craving for knafeh, a dessert from her childhood, inspired both the business and the “Can’t Get Knafeh Of It” bar.
In 2023, TikTok user Maria Vehera posted an ASMR-style video (now with over 122 million views) of her sampling different FIX confections, including Can’t Get Knafeh Of It. Many commenters asked after the green filling, and the product became known as Dubai Chocolate.
As of April 2025, the #DubaiChocolate hashtag has 265 thousand posts on Instagram and more than 355 thousand posts on TikTok. According to Yahoo News, luxury British travel agent Destination2 reported a recent 38 percent “jump” in Dubai bookings amid the current Dubai Chocolate “shopping frenzy” that is sweeping the UK and beyond.
Lindt has relaunched a previously limited edition version of its own Dubai Chocolate, and supermarket Waitrose introduced a two-bar limit to prevent customers from bulk-buying. Meanwhile, shoppers queued outside Lidl to purchase the new “Dubai-Style Chocolate” that just launched, and Aldi Ireland has promptly introduced a “Dubai Chocolate-style” ice cream.
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Is Dubai chocolate vegan?
With a growing number of alternative options and imitations now available, there has been a flurry of interest in vegan Dubai Chocolate in the new year. Internet users have been asking for tips on Reddit and Googling questions such as “Is there vegan Dubai Chocolate?”
Authentic Dubai Chocolate from FIX Dessert Chocolatier is not suitable for vegans as it features dairy milk chocolate. Furthermore, knafeh can include a wide range of regional, traditional, and non-traditional ingredient variations, such as dairy cheese and honey.
In the UK, the most widely available Dubai Chocolate bars – including Lindt, Lidl, and many of the options sold on Etsy, Ebay, and other platforms – all contain dairy. (In fact, Lindt makes its bar using three different types of milk powder, milk fat, and dairy-derived lactose.)
There are, however, several vegan recipes available. Some creators are sticking as close as possible to a veganized version of the original ingredients list, while others are customizing.
The Little Blog Of Vegan, for example, combines shredded kataifi pastry with white and dark chocolate for a marbling effect. It also includes pistachio butter, but no tahini. The All Natural Vegan, meanwhile, adds raw pistachios and coconut-sweetened cacao nibs for extra body.
Read more: Catherine’s Originals Launches ‘UK’s Largest’ Vegan Easter Egg
Where to find vegan Dubai Chocolate bars
It can be tricky to find an authentic, vegan version of the classic Dubai Chocolate bar, but there are a few options available to folks in the UK and US. (Including Easter eggs.)
Kind Hearted Chocs
The newly founded Kind Hearted Chocs makes a Pistachio Kunafa Chocolate Bar, which the small company describes as the “UK’s first” of its kind. Kind Hearted Chocs makes pistachio paste from scratch. It blends this with vegan white chocolate and crunchy, toasted kataifi, and gives the chocolate coating a rippling texture and green and gold marbling pattern.
Kind Hearted Chocs says that the business is “committed to supporting charities that help women, support the LGBTQIA+ community, fight racism and advocate for animal rights.” Throughout March, 2.5 percent of every sale was donated to Women’s Aid via Work For Good.
Find out more here.
The Organic House
Canada’s The Organic House makes a vegan and gluten-free version of Dubai Chocolate. This product is currently available exclusively via the specialty shopping platform Basquet, which caters primarily to North American customers looking for allergen-free products.
The Organic House itself is an award-winning, vegan chocolate-maker, and a “Viral Dubai Knafeh Pistachio EGG with Raspberry Drizzle” is also currently available for pre-order.
Find out more here.
Qoqoa Chocolate
Qoqoa Chocolate is based in Northampton, England, and the family-run business makes and sells both a vegan and a non-vegan version of the Dubai Chocolate bar. The vegan version includes “crispy knafeh and a generous layer of premium Zeina pistachio cream, all encased in a luxurious coating of Belgian dark chocolate.” According to Qoqoa, using vegan dark chocolate in place of milk gives the bar a “smooth richness” to balance the nutty center.
Find out more here.
Considerit
Considerit is based in Edinburgh, Scotland, and makes sweet treats like donuts, milkshakes, ice cream, and chocolate, all handmade with vegan ingredients. The small company is currently taking pre-orders for a “Dubai Pistachio Egg,” which Considerit says is the first of its kind in the UK. The egg includes the company’s “Own unique crunchy pistachio filling encased in perfectly tempered m*lk chocolate,” says Considerit in a description of the chocolate egg.
Find out more here.
Ombar
Ombar was founded nearly 20 years ago, but its presence in the UK’s plant-based market has grown significantly since 2021, when it launched a quartet of oat milk bars at Waitrose. The company is notable for its use of unroasted cacao, organic pistachios, and ethical suppliers.
While not technically a Dubai Chocolate bar, Ombar’s “Pistachio Cream” range might just be the most widely available option for vegan customers in the UK looking for a plant-based taste of pistachio-and-chocolate. A 70g version of the bar is currently available from Ocado, and a smaller 42g version is also available from Waitrose. The range combines organic dark chocolate with a pistachio paste center for a “creamy” and “delicate” flavor combination.
Find out more here.
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