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…
Help! I made the fluff added melted earth balance and crispy rice cereal but it won’t stick together. It tastes great but I can’t cut them; only spoon them out. My cereal didn’t stay crispy either. Any ideas?
I just did this on my blog! I used peanut butter and a little more maple syrup to make it stick together. I froze the bars before cutting. I wonder if it would stick together if we half-baked the fluff, so they were like soft meringues, before adding them to the krispie treats.
Unbelievably easy! I beat mine on high speed and it only took 5 min. I did use sugar, though. Thank you for posting this!!
Did you make anything with it? I made rice crispy treats but they didn’t stick together. (I posted a few days ago.)
Would this work for substitute for marshmallows/fluff? Due to food allergies we have to avoid all corn.
I added cocoa powder and baked them as meringues. Never had them before; very chewy but tasty.
That sounds delicious!
Okay so I usually just make recipes and lurk but I tried this recipe and I have to say… I don’t know when the last time you had marshmallow fluff was, but this doesn’t hold a candle to it! I had grand plans for a vegan rocky road ice cream with homemade fluff but it was not marshmallow fluff-ey at all. I figured I’d try making some meringue cookies instead, so we’ll see how those come out but dang did I really want to make that ice cream!
Actually, as a newer vegan, I’ve had real marshmallow fluff pretty recently and can say this is pretty close to nailing it. In fact, I might even like this one better!
Maybe it’s the non-stickiness that got me. Maybe if there’s some way I could mix some ricemellow fluff and this and make a fluffy sticky mess it would be perfect for my ice cream!
If you add xanthan gum it will make it more firm like fluff.
HELP!!!! I can’t stop eating this!!! Vegan marshmallow fluff?!?! You are a GENIUS! I went vegan a year ago and live in a small town so we don’t get things like Ricemellow Creme or Dandies marshmallows, and I’ve never been one for ordering things online. But we DO get canned beans, of course! All I can say is THANK YOU!!!
Hi Katie! I just tried this fluff, and it turned out great! I used agave syrup and it came out fluffy and thick.
I wanted to see if this could be used in baked goods. I made some fantasy fudge that called for marshmallow creme and used a fresh batch of this “marshmallow fluff”. I can’t remember how regular fudge is supposed to taste, but it tasted great with this as a substitute – and is about 1/5 the calories of regular marshmallow creme. I’m still working on adapting my fudge recipe to be healthier, but I plan on using this each time I make it. Thank you!
I used Eden organic canned white cannelloni bean water with honey and it got thick within a couple of minutes! Also, I didn’t want it to separate after a day and have to keep beating it so I threw a bunch into a shallow container and put it in the freezer to see what would happen – so good! It’s kept its frothy consistency and is still soft enough that you can spoon it out and eat it. Like marshmallow fluff ice cream. I highly recommend it 🙂
I used maple syrup and will try to make them into cookies at a low temp when I have time will let you know
I also used dried bean water after cooking I let it come to room temp for about 24 hours and it worked perfectly even with maple syrup as sweetener. Again will let you know how the cookies come out
With the honey or agave version do you think it would still brown with a kitchen torch? I am going to put this on top of a chocolate pie. 🙂