These shockingly rich and gooey chocolate chip chickpea blondies are one of the most popular recipes I’ve ever posted!
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Even readers who don’t normally like healthy desserts LOVE these blondies!
Have you tried them yet???
In the years since first coming up with the recipe, I’ve served it probably over a hundred times to both strangers and friends, always with rave reviews.
No one can ever believe the ingredients or resist the charms of the moist and fudgy secretly healthy blondies.
Also try these Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
No dairy
No butter
No eggs!
White Bean Blondies
The recipe works with either chickpeas (garbanzo beans) or white beans like cannellini (white kidney beans) or great northern beans.
I like both versions equally, but many readers say they prefer using white beans because the resulting batter is smoother.
*Sugar note: You can use regular sugar, coconut sugar or date sugar, brown sugar, evaporated cane juice, or xylitol or granulated erythritol for sugar free blondies.
I once made a batch using stevia, which I thought were delicious. But my friends informed me they tasted like bars of soap. So make that substitution at your own risk!
For refined-sugar-free blondies, try these Sweet Potato Blondies
Above, watch the chickpea blondie recipe video
How to make chickpea blondies
Start by gathering all of the required ingredients.
If using canned beans instead of cooked, be sure to rinse and drain them very well.
(The drained liquid can actually be used to make Vegan Marshmallow Fluff!)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Blend everything together except the chocolate chips until it resembles cookie dough.
I use and recommend a food processor for smoothest blending and best texture, but some readers say they’ve used a blender (making sure to stop the machine and stir the contents occasionally) with good results.
Stir the chocolate chips into the batter, and smooth into a greased or parchment-lined 8-inch pan. Add a few chocolate chips to the top if desired.
Bake 30 minutes on the oven’s center rack, then remove while they’re still a bit gooey, because they will firm up as they cool.
Chickpea Blondies
Ingredients
- 1 can chickpeas or white beans, or 1 1/2 cups cooked
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp each: salt and baking soda
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar of choice (Substitutions are listed above)
- 1/3 cup flour (white, oat, spelt, sorghum, or 1/2 cup almond flour)
- 1/4 cup applesauce, mashed banana, or yogurt
- 3 tbsp oil or 1/4 cup nut butter
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips, or more if desired
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drain and rinse beans very well. Blend all ingredients (except chips) until very smooth in a good food processor (see not above about using a blender). Mix in chips, and scoop into a greased or parchment-lined 8×8 pan. Optional: you can stick some chocolate chips on top of the batter as well. Bake for 30 minutes. They'll look a little undercooked when you take them out, but they firm up as they cool.View Nutrition Facts
Video
Notes
More Healthy Chickpea Desserts
Flourless Banana Blender Muffins
I just made these tonight and put 1/4 c applesauce and ground flaxseed but it came out pretty “gooey”. The ground chickpeas and everything else made it a very mushy texture. I also only put a few chocolate chips on top because I used to love blondies (the non-vegan kind). It definitely needs chocolate chips in the batter I realized to cover the somewhat bitterness of flax and the flavor of the garbanzos. The actual flavor of the blondie itself is OK but not great but if you add the chocolate, it really covers it well and makes it much better. Maybe using oats rather than flax would made it less gooey. My husband didn’t like the texture so I stuck more chocolate chips on top and put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes or more until it was significantly browned on top and had a better texture.
I just made these bars today, and I completely fooled my entire family–including my dad and younger brother who would never knowingly try something like this! These are great and super easy (and cheap) to make. DO NOT try to use a blender for this recipe; it will not work!
Is there nutritional info for these? Dud I miss it?
Never mind. Found it. It’s still early…
I attempted a sugar free version subbing 1 small ripe banana and 1/4 pitted dates for the sugar. I also used almond butter instead of PB, quick oats instead of flax, and used a whole Tbsp of vanilla extract. Everything else was the same. The batter didn’t taste good so I kept adding agave nectar until I was nomming the batter off the spatula. THEN I added the chocolate chips, which cover a multitude of sins. So with all those additions I cooked them a little longer but was worried about overcooking so I took them out after about 35 minutes. Straight out of the oven it was really mushy, like a hot pudding, so I kept sampling it as it cooled down to see how the texture changed – I ended up eating half the pan! The end result was quite a doughy, undercooked cookie-batter texture, just a little too far on the mushy side of the moist fudginess you want in a blondie. Next time I think if I just subbed 2-3 Tbsp of agave for the sugar I don’t think I’d need the banana or dates and I bet they’d turn out more firm. Either that or soak the dates first — basically just cook CCK’s sugar free cookie-dough dip recipe, as she has previously suggested. I look forward to trying the agave-only version next.
whoops, that should be 1/4 CUP pitted dates. Also forgot to mention I used butter beans (small lima beans) which have practically no taste on their own so they are a brilliant “hidden” bean.
I should also add that the end result, mushy or not, was still delicious! Chocolate chips seriously fix everything.
I made my second batch today. This time I followed the recipe exactly, using butter beans, coconut sugar, almond butter, and quick oats. I baked exactly 30 minutes. Absolutely delicious!! I’m not sure yet if I prefer these to the experimental banana/date/agave version I did last time but they definitely blended up easier and baked faster – this version is slightly less sweet, which isn’t a bad thing. I agree with an earlier comment that these are even better the next day or after chilling a while to ‘firm up.’ My husband didn’t love the last batch and I’m kind of hoping he doesn’t love these either – more for me! 🙂
I was a little skeptical but these are GREAT!! The German Chocolate Fudge Bites are another fav! I have to have 1 or 2 (or 3) every night 🙂
Ok…so I just made these this morning. I did use a blender and it worked just fine. These are so delicious, I may never make black bean brownies again!! I did process the beans first, and blended after adding each ingredient. I had to scrape the sides often, but oh my goodness, so worth it! I am taking them to work today for our Bake Sale and will be very proud to sell them to even non-vegans. Thank you so much for this deliciousness. yummy.
I made these this morning for our Bake Sale at work. I did use a blender, and it worked perfectly! They were delicious!!!!! Everybody loved them, even non-vegans. I put the ingredients in the blender one at time, and blended, scrapping the sides. I used cannellini beans and old fashioned oats, which I blended down to almost oat flour. I will probably never make black bean brownies again. The nut butter makes all the difference in the fudgy-ness. I baked mine for 26 minutes. I can’t wait to make them again.
Hi,
i would just like to tell you i just tried this recipe. {Chocolate-Chip Blondies}.. and it was amazing….. i cannot believe it tasted soo good….. thank you for your recipe…. you are a truly an amazing person…
thank you
Hey,
Please can you try and make more student-friendly recipes? or a specific tag for them or something?
I’m a student in England, i do not own a food processor which many recipes i really want to make (such as this one!!!) require, i (unlike most students) do own a blender, but trying to blend chick peas killed my blender and i had to get a new one!! – please can you try and make more blender-friendly or non-processor recipes?
Also, i have only ever seen one type of tofu in the shops, you mention lots of varieties of tofu which for me just don’t seem to exist – does tofu type really matter?
A lot of your ingredients i’ve never seen, whenever a liquid sweetener is mentioned i use golden syrup, England doesn’t seem to have half of the stuff you include – please can you try and make some more non-American friendly recipes?
Many of your ingredients are so so expensive! Again, maybe it’s just because i’m in England, but i am not paying £5 for like 200g of cashewnut butter, that’s a quarter of my weekly food budget!!!!
I love your recipes, and i try as many as i can, but so many ingredients i’ve never heard of or can’t get in England, or cannot afford.
Please make UK Student friendly recipes/recipe tags!!!
Thanks Naomi 🙂
I just made these for like the third time and something amazing happened. I was playing around with the recipe and I used a blend of cocoa butter and sunflower seed butter for the fat and agave for the vanilla and they turned GREEN! like forest green! I turned away from the batter for 5 minutes after processing it and it was color changed when I turned back around! They’re so pretty, I had to share! I should have a picture up on my blog about it soon! 🙂
http://substituteit.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/their-brownies-theyre-blondies-theyre-greenies/
Ever heard that smart people have barely any common sense? 😛
my sister is very clever, and a natural blonde and I know loads of other blondes who are smart, so I agree with you. Though I do know lots of clever people with no common sense aswell 😛
Love your site…chocoholic and not sorry!
It’s just a little depressing that this notion of “blonde versus brunette” is alive and well, running rampant in the impressionable little minds of the simple-minded/ignorant. Why don’t we expand this concept to eye color, or perhaps, skin color, race, ethnicity, etc.? Sound appropriate? Cute, funny? Shall we describe our mistaken social cues/actions and behaviors using a reference to a group that exhibits a particular skin color and make these references frequently and in such a colloquial, relaxed manner as we seem to regarding hair color? “Oh, hey, she had a dumb [insert minority/ethnic group] moment, ha ha ha”. But, it’s just hair color, right? Totally innocuous, eh? Merely discussing this whole, “do you know any dumb blondes who are actually smart”, or “I’m a brunette and I totally have dumb blonde moments” conversation, lends a false sense of credence and validation to a concept that is completely moot. I was embarrassed and saddened while reading this discussion below. Not one person mentioned how inherently problematic this entire conversation is…
I finally got around the making these. I used 1/4 cup oat flour and replaced sugar with xylitol. Next time i would use less xylitol since its very very sweet, but its amazing!!!! Oh, i also didnt use any nut butter and i didnt add salt since my canned chickpeas still tasted a bit salty. Thanks soooo much for this recipe!!! I love it!!!
i threw these together today and they were a hit! i had to stop myself after 4! my older brother tried them and immediately gave me a hug! 🙂 Definitely making these again!