Black Bean Brownies – the ultra fudgy and decadent chocolate treat.
Edit: Thank you to everyone who has been asking…
After more than a year in the works, my NEW cookbook is finally available!
Based on your feedback, every single recipe in the book comes with complete nutrition facts including calories, total fat, carbohydrates, protein, and Weight Watchers points.
Above – Watch how to make black bean brownies.
I know what you’re thinking.
“Why would I want to eat a healthy brownie when I could be eating a deep, dark, rich, fudgy, and chocolatey brownie instead?”
But what if the deep, dark, rich, chocolate brownie is the healthy brownie?
No, not in a dream world. These black bean brownies are healthy brownies that DO NOT taste healthy, and I can say that with assurance, as they’ve been tested on three different groups of people used to “normal” desserts.
For the ultimate test, my roommate brought two pans of the vegan black bean brownies into work and set them down on the table without revealing the secret or saying they were healthy.
She came home with no brownies left… but with five requests for the healthy black bean brownie recipe!
You May Also Like: Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Easy Black Bean Brownies
I know some of you have been disappointed by mediocre bean-based brownies you’ve tried in the past, which is why it’s taken me so long to come up with my own recipe:
I’ve tried some awful black bean brownie recipes in the past, too.
For example?
Don’t think you’ll get brownies by adding cocoa powder to my Chickpea Cookie Dough Dip and baking it.
Trust me. You’ll get cardboard.
I wanted a recipe that would not let people down; a recipe that could stand up to a regular sugar-and-flour brownie in a competition.
And these really do!
Also, huge thanks to everyone who’s been sharing these on Instagram!
If you try the brownies, be sure to rate the recipe here, or tag @ChocolateCoveredKatie on Instagram so I can see and like your pictures!
Black Bean Brownies
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups black beans (1 15-oz can, drained and rinsed very well) (250g after draining)
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder (10g)
- 1/2 cup quick oats (40g) (See nutrition link below for substitutions)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup pure maple syrup, honey, or agave (75g)
- pinch uncut stevia OR 2 tbsp sugar (or omit and increase maple syrup to 1/2 cup)
- 1/4 cup coconut or vegetable oil (40g) (See nutrition link for substitution notes)
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 cup to 2/3 cup chocolate chips (Not optional. Omit at your own risk)
- optional: more chips, for presentation
Instructions
- Black Bean Brownies Recipe: Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine all ingredients except chips in a good food processor, and blend until completely smooth. Really blend well. (A blender can work if you absolutely must, but the texture—and even the taste—will be much better in a food processor. I use this food processor.) Stir in the chips, then pour into a greased 8×8 pan. Optional: sprinkle extra chocolate chips over the top. Cook the black bean brownies 15-18 minutes, then let cool at least 10 minutes before trying to cut. If they still look a bit undercooked, you can place them in the fridge overnight and they will magically firm up! Makes 9-12 brownies. If you make this recipe, don't forget to leave a review! The trick with these: serve them first, and then reveal the secret ingredient. In all the times I’ve served bean desserts, not one single person who didn’t know beforehand has ever guessed!View Black Bean Brownies Nutrition Facts
Video
Notes
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(No crazy ingredients!)
The best brownie I’ve ever had! I love all the recipes I’ve made from katie so far but this is my favourite!
Made it
Used agave nectar and ghirardelli chocolate chips. Can’t tell that it s Ande with black beans. Delicious
So unbelievably delicious! The kids will never find out what’s in them!!! 🙂
I just needed to comment that you have the best blog! These brownies are my go to brownies and I don’t think I have ever tried anything I didn’t end up loving on your blog. It is probably the only blog I come back to again and again. Thank you for putting all the time and effort into creating healthy delicious food and treats!
Is there any way to make this great recipe diabetic friendly? What would you suggest to replace maple syrup/honey/agave?
Hmmm, maybe using 1/2 cup xylitol and then adding extra milk of choice to make up the liquid? If you experiment, be sure to report back!
These are seriously magical! Gave them to my husband without telling him what they were made of— he thought it was delicious! Win 🙂
I really wanted to like these. But I just made them and I’m not sure what I did wrong but I didn’t think they turned out very good. I rinsed the black beans very thoroughly (for a couple of minutes under the faucet) and added all the other ingredients as instructed — I used honey and vegetable oil. My only thought is that the batter wasn’t smooth enough. My food processor was not able to get it really smooth after several minutes of blending on high speed. It was still grainy. So then I put the batter in my blender which is newer and higher power, but it was way too thick for that. It all just sat on top of the blade and wouldn’t mix.
Now that they’re baked, I definitely taste something strange in them and while I might not have guessed beans if I didn’t know they were in there, I would guess it was something uncommon. They taste very… earthy. And dry. And any bites that don’t contain chocolate chips are pretty un-chocolatey.
All in all, they’re alright, and if I was gluten intolerant and couldn’t eat other brownies I’d probably be very happy to have these as an option. But as someone who is not gluten intolerant, these don’t hit the spot. But I might have done it wrong, who knows!
Hi! What type/size food processor do you have? I think it needs to be powerful enough to make the batter smooth, otherwise you’d get chunky pieces of beans, and that sounds terrible! I love these and am not vegan, but my batter is always smooth (I have a Cuisinart processor). I am pretty sure I would hate them if they had pieces of bean in the finished product lol. Or it could of course just be possible that the recipe just isn’t your thing, which is completely ok too!
Delicious! Even my daughter who usually doesn’t like cakes or biscuits loved these.
Oh my word I just made these today and they were AMAZING! Served them to a bunch of guys and all of them gobbled them up, not suspecting a thing! The ones I told how the brownies were made were shocked! They said they never would have known.
Here’s what they said about the brownies:
“I was wondering if they were gluten free because they aren’t very chewy, but I would still eat them; they’re good”
“If you added oil or butter they’d be perfect” (Lol, they actually do have oil in them;)
“These are made with BEANS?? You’re lying!”
“These are so good!”
Congrats, Katie–all the other black bean brownie recipes out there kind of suck to be honest, but you’ve found a way to make them not only surprisingly healthy, but also delicious!
I love when people try them and don’t know what they are. That was my introduction to these brownies too, and I pretty much reacted the same way, very skeptically!
Just made my second batch of these brownies and they are delicious! The first was a little too sweet for me so I reduced the amount of sweetener – also using less maple syrup and more stevia to cut down on calories. I also topped mine with frozen cranberries before baking as I love a bit of tart with my sweet! Thanks for a great recipe, they’ll be going on my instagram page ?
I make these all the time for myself and our boys and they are always amazing! I tried substituting coconut flour for the oats today and they were still just as good! A bit dryer but still super yummy!
I love black beans and brownies. I have been really wanting to try a recipe for black bean brownies. This one has a wonderful texture. I added a tbsp or so more sugar and they still were pretty bland. I wonder if a little would have helped. Maybe, black bean brownies aren’t for me. I’ve tried a lot of healthy alternative recipes that come out inedible, but these were good. I just can taste the beans too much. I am really amazed by the smoothness though. I can see why these have a 5 star rating. I added coconut shreds on the top of half of the brownies prior to baking, along with the chocolate chips. That was really good if you like coconut.
I stumbled upon this recipe a week or so ago, and it was sheer scepticism that kept me here, reading pages and pages (124, to be exact) of comments and fully believing that the high reviews were from vegan/gf folks who had forgotten what good desserts tasted like – and I say that as a vegan who has been disappointed more than once while trying to recreate ‘delightful’ vegan desserts. Such cynicism led me to try two versions of this brownie, absolutely convinced that both would be failures.
For the first, I swapped out the coconut oil for a mix of vegan spread and cocoa butter, used dark cocoa powder (3 tbsp instead of 2), opted for the 1/2 cup of maple syrup, 50g of rolled oats (5O to make up for the extra bit of liquid from the excess maple syrup, oats blitzed to a flour), a pinch of cayenne, 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips (blitzed together with everything but the oats), a bit more baking powder than instructed, the vanilla essence, and 1/3 dairy free choc chips (stirred through with the oats when everything else had been blended). My food processor is a dink, so I processed everything but the 1/3 cup choc chips and oats, then tipped out into a bowl and mixed in the oats and chips. I then emptied it into a loaf pan (I wanted thicker brownies than what an 8×8 pan would have offered) and topped with a sprinkling of dark choc chips.
After hearing many complaints of the mixture being extremely loose, I was expecting to be baking them for double the time stated. However, I checked them after 20 minutes and they were done. Once cooled, I whipped up a quick salted caramel sauce and melted some salted dark chocolate with a touch of coconut oil and drizzled them both over the top.
For the second, I used adzuki beans, 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips, 40g oat flour (blitzed into flour), 3 tbsp dark cocoa powder, 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp peanut butter to replace the coconut oil, 1/3 cup agave topped up with a splash of maple syrup, 2 tbsp coconut sugar, vanilla essence, more baking powder than stated, 1/3 cup choc chips, and 1/4 tsp salt. I also whisked together some more peanut butter with maple syrup to swirl some on top alongside some raspberry conserve, peanuts, and fresh raspberries. These needed to bake for a few minutes longer, but after 20 I covered the top with foil to ensure the top didn’t burn.
The result? I was amazed. Truly. If someone could have captured a video of my expression when taking a bite of the salted caramel brownie, I wouldn’t need to write this long-ass review. My face would be enough. They are unreal. I couldn’t detect the beans, and I went in actively searching for them. No one I shared them with thought they were anything other than normal brownies. I’ve already got plans to make them again in a couple weeks for my nephew’s birthday. I am so, so happy with these brownies, and I cannot explain the self control it has taken to not eat both pans in the span of a day. I already can’t wait to make them again, and I’m so glad this is the introduction I’ve had to CCK.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I read through 124 pages of comments to get here. At least a third of them are questions that have been repeated tens of times because people don’t have the time or energy to search through ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FOUR PAGES to find answers. I figured I’d compile the main offenders into one handy post. Feel free to copy and paste it over to the next however many pages this wonderful recipe gains.
Why are they so thin? Why don’t they rise?
They’re so thin because the ingredients don’t provide a huge amount of batter. The brownies being approx 1cm, once baked, in height is, apparently, a common thing. Because of this, I did one batch in a loaf tin (9×5) and one in another smaller tin (8×6). The loaf tin ones came out at a pretty perfect (in my opinion) height, similar to the ones in Katie’s picture. I don’t know how she would have got them to that height in an 8×8 tin. I think this kind of covers the rising issue, too. It’s not abnormal that they don’t rise. This recipe isn’t supposed to. If you want them to have more height, put them in a smaller tin.
Why are they so gooey?
I didn’t have this problem, though I went in fully expecting it. I did add an extra 10g of oats when using the extra maple syrup method, and maybe this helped the texture, but I don’t know for sure. It’s recommended to leave them in the refrigerator overnight if they need to firm up somewhat. If they seem to be extremely gooey when you check on them after the 15-18 mins, bake them for a little longer. One of my batches took 20 mins and the other closer to 30.
What chocolate chips should I use?
Any. In the thousands of comments I’ve read, people have used white, milk, dark, vegan, peanut butter, caramel, reese’s pieces. They’ve also used cranberries, walnuts, pecans, raisins, and raspberries. This recipe is hugely forgiving and accepting of many changes, so be adventurous and see what sticks.
Can I replace the instant oats?
Yes. I only had rolled oats and blitzed them into a flour. This worked beautifully. People have also had luck with subbing almond flour, coconut flour, potato flour, flaxseed, and a mixture of the above.
Can I replace the oil?
Yes. I replaced one batch with half cocoa butter. I replaced another with peanut butter. Both worked very well. Other people have had luck subbing with applesauce or excluding it completely. Whatever you’re thinking, give it a whirl. More than likely, it’ll work.
Can I use other beans?
Yes. Quite a few people have used adzuki beans instead of black. The same with kidney beans. There has also been mention of successes with pinto beans, white beans, refried beans and chickpeas.
Can I use dry black beans?
Yes. Measure out 1 1/2 cups, soak them as per the package instructions, and cook until tender. Drain and rinse very well. Then use as you would canned beans.
Can I use dark cocoa powder?
Yes. I did, as have many others. I’ve not read any complaints and have none of my own.
How should I store them and for how long?
Keep the brownies in the fridge. If you need to firm them up, leave uncovered in the fridge overnight. Then place them in a sealed container. If they don’t need firming, place them directly in a sealed container. The general consensus for how long they keep is 3-4 days. I kept mine for 5 (yay, willpower) and they were just as good on the fifth day, but each to their own.
Can I freeze them?
Yes.
Is the calorie count for 9 or 12 brownies?
12.
Why is the calorie count wrong?
It doesn’t seem to be. It’s been noted that the the calorie count closely resembles those in Katie’s cookbook, and the cookbook counted calories were formulated by an outside company, so these seem legit. Apparently, many online calculators get confused between raw beans and cooked which can offer wildly varying figures. It’s also better to count the calories when using gram measurements instead of cups and tbsps, etc. Keep in mind that different brands offer different calories, too.
What’s with the WW points?
From what i can gather, WW have massively changed their points system since this recipe was conceived and posted. Katie isn’t trying to con you with this whine points thing, WW have just changed their calculating methods.
Why are these healthier than ‘normal’ brownies?
Everyone has their own perspective and no one is claiming that these are the healthiest snacks ever, but the use of beans and oats as the primary ingredients mean that it’s much less likely to suffer a sugar crash after eating these due to the protein and fibre. Would I eat these every day? No. But when I do eat them I feel a hell of a lot better eating these than I would their traditional equivalent.
Hi Katie,
I’ve just tried your recipe….it is delicious, it is easy and the brownies are so tasty!
Thank you!
Greetings from Italy
I love this recipe! I haven’t made black bean brownies in 6 years, and now I’ll be making them more often now. I used maple syrup and a bit of honey since I didn’t have agave. I also used avocado oil and they turned out delicious!
I love your idea to use avocado oil!