This healthy vegan marshmallow fluff is going to rock your world…
Sweetener of choice
+
Water from a can of chickpeas
=
Homemade marshmallow fluff ????
Crazy, right?!
I can’t take credit for this brilliant “bean liquid egg whites” discovery.
The idea was sent to me in a facebook message earlier this year by a reader who discovered you could whip up the liquid from a can of garbanzo beans with sugar to form stiff peaks then pipe the mixture out and bake it into vegan meringues.
Since readers often write to tell me their own recipe ideas or experiments, I didn’t think too much about the message at first, especially since meringue and I have always been more of acquaintances than friends.
However, a few months later when I noticed some of my friends posting stunningly beautiful chickpea vegan meringues on instagram, suddenly I was intrigued.
Healthy Vegan Marshmallow Fluff
Then another reader left a comment on the blog asking if I’d tried bean meringue yet and mentioning that chickpea liquid–commonly referred to as aquafaba–has been used as an egg replacer since as early as in a 1968 cookbook (Ten Talents, by Rosalie and Frank J Hurd).
Wait… so it can be an egg replacer in other things besides meringue?!?
Like crepes?! Or baked goods??
So many ideas are swirling around in my head right now…
Christina’s message had mentioned whipping the liquid with fine sugar to form meringue, but I wanted to know if the aquafaba would also work with a liquid sweetener.
Only one way to find out! Seven minutes in, my pseudo meringue still looked like water, and I was almost ready to give up and throw the whole thing out.
But—magically at minute 9—it began to thicken… and thicken… and thicken even more!
Above – watch the video of how to make vegan marshmallow fluff
I had a baking sheet all ready to go for the meringues…
The only problem was that I just couldn’t seem to stop dipping my spoon into the airy cream.
It was just like marshmallow fluff!
Ideas for ways to use this healthy marshmallow fluff include:
Homemade s’mores, as frosting for cupcakes or my Vegan Chocolate Cake Recipe, in fluffernutter sandwiches… the possibilities go on and on!
Edit – There’s also now a version for Chocolate Marshmallow Fluff!
Vegan Marshmallow Fluff
Ingredients
- 1 can chickpeas or white beans (15oz)
- 1/3 cup sweetener of choice, such as agave, fine sugar, or xylitol for sugar-free
- optional pinch cream of tartar, for stabilization
Instructions
- Open the can of beans and drain just the watery part into a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl. (Save the actual beans for a different recipe. If you need inspiration, here are 50+ Healthy Uses For Canned Beans.) You should have about 1/2 cup chickpea liquid. Add all other ingredients, and beat with an electric mixer or in a stand mixer for 12-16 minutes. It will look thin for quite a while—and you’ll probably be cursing me—but don’t give up hope! Mine really began to thicken around minutes 10-11. Cover and refrigerate any leftovers. It separates overnight, but re-beating works perfectly. (I’ve not tried this recipe without beaters, but you are free to experiment. The sugar version can be baked into meringues; I haven’t tried baking the liquid-sweetener version.) I’ve tried this healthy marshmallow fluff with both regular and unsalted bean liquid and can’t taste a big difference, so use whatever you have on hand.View Nutrition Facts
Video
Notes
More Vegan Recipes:
Vegan Breakfast Recipes – 50 Vegan Recipes
And now I’m going to go work on some homemade Mallomars…
This is awesome I just tried it and you may not realize it but if you freeze this stuff after whipping it it becomes almost no calorie ice cream or frozen whipped topping!!! You should try it!!
Katie!!! I made this! Wow! And….strange!! I really enjoyed watching the transformation! FYI you MUST add some sort of sweetener. Fluffy bean whip is yuck! I added a stevia/erythritol mixture. As it sat it sweetened up but the creamy texture went away. It became frothy in the frig. I haven’t rewhipped to see what it would do. All of my children approved of it and this has massive opportunities!
According to Goose Wohlt, he got the idea from a French Youtube video https://youtu.be/aIlp_FUINZI . This was in turn inspired by Joël Roessel, who has no idea how the makers of that video wound making it.
My two cents:
#1 We are now prepared for Chickengeddon.
#2 Where was this in World War II?
Hi..! Waiting to try the marshmallow…will it stay in the fridge for some days..?
Thx..!
Would xyitol cause the bad effects that sorbitol does ?
Wonderful vegan recipes! Much appreciated.
And what a lovely young woman you are, too.
Thank you for making the world a better place for animals and all of us.
Hi! This is a great idea 😀
Can I use dates as a sweetener?
Just tried this recipe for the first time. I used coconut sugar since I already had that on hand for the recipe I was pairing the fluff with. It gave the batch this toasted flavor that was almost like a campfire roasted marshmallow. Really delicious.
I don’t think I beat my fluff long enough (I was trying to follow the recipe by memory) because mine seemed a bit bubbly. However, it did hold its shape. I’m baking it into a meringue now just to be on the safe side. Fingers crossed!
Thanks, so long waiting for this recipe
I am going to try this as a fondant base. I currently make marshmallow fondant with melted marshmallows and icing sugar, and have heard you can use marshmallow fluff and add icing sugar until you have a rough consistency. This sounds much healthier so next time I make a cake and need fondant, I will experiment with this 🙂 thank you!