With no flour or eggs required, these fudgy chocolate black bean brownie bites are a delicious homemade vegan snack or dessert you won’t want to share!
Chocolate black bean brownie bites
Want to quickly become the most popular person at your next party?
Just whip up a batch of these rich and decadent gooey chocolate brownie bites, and watch how fast the entire tray disappears!
The healthy brownie bites absolutely hold their own against any traditional flour-and-sugar brownies. Your guests will never guess the secret ingredient.
You may also like Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Brownie bites that do not taste healthy
There are definitely some healthy dessert recipes on my blog that do taste healthy.
For example, no one would confuse my Banana Ice Cream recipe with Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked ice cream or proclaim Chia Pudding to be the most decadent dessert they’ve ever tasted in their life.
However, these black bean brownie bites taste 100% just as rich, fudgy, moist, chocolatey, and indulgent as traditional homemade brownies.
They can easily stand up against those famous Little Bites Fudge Brownies from Entenmann’s, or store bought brownie bites from Costco, Sam’s Club, or Target.
If anything, this healthier version is even more rich, moist, chocolatey, and decadent. While traditional brownie bites with flour can often be dry and crumbly, the black beans in this healthy recipe keep them ultra moist and soft, with NO crumbling.
The recipe was inspired by my black bean brownies and Healthy Brownies, two other bean desserts that are huge crowd pleasers, even with people who have no interest whatsoever in vegan or healthy eating.
So don’t be afraid to try these out at your next event. You might be surprised at the overwhelmingly positive reception they receive!
Watch the healthy brownie bites recipe video – above
Black bean brownie bite flavors
This healthy dessert is incredibly versatile. Feel free to include anything you normally add to homemade or boxed brownies.
Stir in a handful of shredded coconut or chopped walnuts or pecans. Or add a pinch of ground cinnamon or a few drops of pure peppermint extract.
They are also really good with a half teaspoon of instant coffee sprinkled into the batter before baking. (I use this brand of instant coffee.)
I love using peanut butter in the recipe and stirring in some chopped peanuts or pressing a vegan peanut butter cup into the top of each bite, turning them into chocolate peanut butter brownie bites.
Finally, if you’re feeling really lazy, you can always just eat the eggless batter with a spoon and call it a day. Not that I’ve ever done this or anything…
Healthy brownie bite ingredients
Here’s what you need: cocoa powder, rolled oats or almond flour, black beans, liquid sweetener of choice, a little salt, oil or almond butter, pure vanilla extract, baking powder, and mini chocolate chips.
I know some people will be skeptical of the idea of beans in desserts. But did you know Entenmann’s brownie bites contain beans too??
It’s true; they have soybean oil an locust bean gum. Not to mention their other ingredients that include sugar, eggs, bleached wheat flour, corn syrup, whey protein concentrate, propylene glycol esters of fatty acids, mono and diglycerides, sodium stearoyl lactylate, cellulose gum, and artificial flavor.
In contrast, the fudgy homemade brownie bites have just nine ingredients, with no artificial flavors, gums, corn syrup, or flour.
They can be gluten free, egg free, dairy free, vegan, and refined sugar free.
Most importantly, they taste so intensely fudgy and delicious that no one even notices those other ingredients are missing!
Substitution options
Many people have asked me over the years if they can substitute lentils or another type of bean for the black beans.
While I have not personally tried, many readers have written in to say they successfully substituted white beans, kidney beans, lentils, or adzuki beans.
I do not recommend steel cut oats here. But you can use a third cup of white, spelt, or oat flour instead of the oats if you prefer.
How to make the healthy dessert
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and grease a mini muffin pan.
If you don’t have a mini muffin pan, you can bake the recipe in either a regular sized muffin pan. Or use an eight inch pan and cut into mini or large squares.
Process all ingredients except the chocolate chips in a high quality food processor until thick and completely smooth.
Stir in the chocolate chips. Portion the batter into the prepared muffin tin, and press a few extra chocolate chips on top if desired.
Bake on the oven’s center rack for ten minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, and let it cool for at least another ten minutes before going around the sides of each brownie bite with a knife and popping them out onto a plate.
Store these healthy brownie bites the same way you would store classic brownies. Once cool, place them in a covered container with a tiny opening for excess moisture to escape. They can stay out on the counter for a day.
After a day, I recommend placing in an airtight covered container and refrigerating for freshness. The brownies should last around four to five days.
You can also freeze leftover brownie bites in an airtight container for up to three or four months. Thaw before serving.
If you prefer blondies instead, try these Chickpea Blondies
Chocolate Black Bean Brownie Bites
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp regular cocoa powder
- 1 tbsp Dutch cocoa powder or additional regular
- 1/3 cup rolled oats or 1/2 cup almond flour (for keto, try these Keto Brownies)
- 1 can black beans or 1 1/2 cup cooked
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup pure maple syrup, honey, or agave
- 1/4 cup oil or almond or peanut butter
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, or more for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a mini muffin pan. (A regular muffin pan also works, or you can smooth the batter into an 8×8 pan.) Process all ingredients except chips in a high quality food processor until smooth. Stir in chips. (Omit chips at own risk – I only vouch for the final taste if they’re included!) Portion into the pan, press a few more chips into the tops if desired, and bake on the center rack 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, and let cool at least 10 additional minutes before going around the sides with a knife and popping out.View Nutrition Facts
Video
Notes
More Healthy Chocolate Snacks
Aha! Healthy brownies?
Pinned it! Love your tasty and healthy blog.
Really Liked your yummy cookies. Will sure try these once.
I made these today and they were yummy!!! My kids loved them too! They didn’t look quite like the picture though. They were more smooth on top and looked less like a brownie. Maybe I mixed it too long??
Tried with almond flour and they tasted awesome! Just a little challenging to get out of the pan. Tonight I tried using oats. However, the batter was a little thick.
Do you measure the oats and then grind them to make an oat flour or do you measure 1/3 from oat flour? Asking because I made them with 1/3 already ground it’s and am wondering if that’s why they were so thick.
The recipe doesn’t say hoe long it had to bake in the oven when using regular sized muffinpans or 8×8 inch bakingpan. Seems to mee baking time must increase
Thanks for this recipe. These are great!! I did tweak it a little. I am sugar free so I used Date honey in place of the sweetener.
I also used natural peanut butter instead of the oil. Because I used a 8×8 pan, they did need to cook longer. About 25 minutes total.
They turned out great!!!
I am not even kidding these were seriously so good! I never comment on stuff and have tried every “healthy” dessert out there and this is by far my favorite! I have made chickpea cookie dough before and I’ll be honest… it isn’t great and you can taste the chickpeas, but I am telling you that you absolutely cannot taste the black beans! You would never know they were in there! If you let them sit out for a bit they firm up. I store them in the fridge and either eat them cold, or the best thing ever is to heat one up in the microwave for 15 seconds and put some halo top over it! Best recipe ever, thank you!!!
Ooh I definitely need to try them heated now!
I made these tonight and I think they tasted delicious, even though they don’t look like the picture above.
I had cooked beans from the night before so I didn’t use canned beans, and I found it tasted great. I used regular cocoa powder for both options, quick oats, added some walnuts, natural peanut butter, chocolate chips and kept the recipe the same otherwise. I tried using a blender, and like the others mentioned in the comments, the beans just got stuck. Then I used a hand blender, and got it to mix pretty well, except my brownie dough turned out clumpy- not smooth like the recipe called for. I eventually used my hands to “knead” it to make sure everything mixed well. To put them in the muffin tin, I rolled the dough into balls and pressed them into the muffin tin, so they’d stick together better. Baked it for 10 minutes and let it cool for 10 minutes. Again, doesn’t look like the pictures but I still enjoyed the taste! Yummy healthy bean brownies. :):):)
I made these for my family and they turned out incredible!!!!!! I can’t stop grabbing one as I walk by the fridge! My family LOVES them (and I didn’t share the secret ingredient!). I used all Dutch process cocoa powder because that was all I had, and it works really well! I swear it tastes exactly like the brownie bites from the store. I’m SO impressed!
I have made these twice – the first time I used peanut butter and the 1/2 cup sweetener in the recipe (I used honey). I didn’t like them a ton, but I suspected it was because of the PB and it was also a little too sweet. The second time I made them I used coconut oil and cut the honey to 1/3 cup. Delicious!!! Thanks for the recipe 🙂