Rich, decadent, and unbelievably fudgy, these secretly healthy sweet potato brownies are so completely delicious that no one can ever believe the ingredients!
Are you looking for a healthy brownie recipe that DOES NOT taste healthy?
This ultra chocolatey sweet potato brownie recipe absolutely fits the bill. Imagine a brownie that tastes like pure bliss and is pretty much impossible to stop eating.
Suddenly you look up, and the entire pan of brownies is gone.
Seriously, that’s how good these are.
You may also like this Healthy Banana Bread
The best healthy sweet potato brownie recipe
In these secretly lightened-up brownies, the sweet potato adds depth of flavor and moisture, keeping the brownies soft and fudgy without needing any oil in the recipe.
The vegan sweet potato brownie recipe can be suitable for low calorie, gluten free, and sugar free diets. And there’s a flourless option as well.
You also get extra protein (5.6 grams per brownie!), iron from the cocoa, and a vegetable serving, all at the same time.
Brownies > vitamins.
(Please don’t quote me on this.)
Above, watch the sweet potato brownie recipe video
You probably know by now how much I love brownies.
Vegan Brownies, Peanut Butter Brownies, Zucchini Brownies, and Chickpea Brownies…
Today you get brownies again.
Hope you like brownies.
(Does anyone not like brownies??)
Also try these Black Bean Brownies
Vegan sweet potato brownie ingredients
This is what you need to make the recipe: sweet potato, cocoa powder, pure vanilla extract, nut butter, flour, sweetener, baking soda, salt, and chocolate chips.
To make nut free brownies, swap sunbutter or your favorite allergy friendly alternative for the peanut butter or almond butter. Or make these Healthy Brownies.
I like to use a fourth cup of regular unsweetened cocoa powder and two tablespoons of Dutch cocoa. If you can only find regular, that’s fine to use for all six tablespoons.
You can use store bought canned sweet potato puree. Or make your own by roasting a sweet potato (here’s the best way How To Cook Sweet Potatoes) and then blending the flesh or mashing it extremely well with a fork until smooth.
How to make sweet potato brownies
If using homemade sweet potato puree, see how to make it above.
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Line an eight inch baking pan with parchment paper, or grease it well.
Unless it is already smooth and easily stir-able, gently warm up the nut butter to soften. Then whisk it together with the mashed sweet potato and pure vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl until smooth.
In a separate bowl, stir together all remaining ingredients, making sure that the baking soda and salt are evenly incorporated.
Pour the dry ingredients into the wet, and stir to form a brownie batter. Smooth into the prepared pan, scooping out all traces of batter.
Use a second sheet of parchment paper to really smooth everything down. (Watch the step-by-step video above.)
Bake the brownie pan on the oven’s center rack for twenty minutes. It will look underdone when you remove the pan after this time, but the brownies firm up quite a bit as they cool.
(If yours are still too gooey for some reason after cooling, loosely cover the pan and refrigerate a few hours. This will let them firm up more while still keeping them fudgy.)
Still craving chocolate? Make Avocado Chocolate Mousse
Frosting options
Feel free to either keep them plain and unfrosted or frost the sweet potato brownies with your favorite homemade or store bought icing.
Or you can frost them with my Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting.
The brownies in the video above are topped with chocolate sweet potato frosting. To make that easy two ingredient frosting, melt twelve ounces of chocolate chips or chopped up chocolate bar, then blend with the scooped out flesh of a large baked sweet potato until completely smooth. That’s it!
Sweet Potato Brownies
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup sweet potato puree
- 1 cup peanut or almond butter, or allergy-friendly sub
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 6 tbsp flour (Oat, white, or spelt flour work. Readers reported success with almond flour)
- 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips + more for the top, optional
- 2/3 cup sugar (for sugar free, try these Keto Brownies)
- 6 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/8 tsp salt
Instructions
- If using homemade sweet potato puree, see how to make it above. To make the brownies, start by preheating the oven to 325 F. Line an 8-inch pan with parchment, or grease well. If not easily stir-able, gently heat nut butter to soften. Whisk it with the sweet potato and vanilla until smooth. Stir all remaining ingredients together (making sure the salt and baking soda are evenly incorporated), then pour dry into wet. Stir to form a batter. Smooth into the baking pan, scooping out all traces of batter. Use a second sheet of parchment to really smooth everything down. Bake 20 minutes. They should look underdone when you take them out. The brownies firm up as they cool. If for some reason yours are too gooey after cooling, loosely cover and refrigerate a few hours. Frost if desired.View Nutrition Facts
Video
Notes
Healthy Dessert Recipes
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Katie, Katie, Katie. I’ve always loved your recipes, but everytime I made a dessert with beans (albeit delicious) they have always been discovered by my family members who have grown to expect me hiding things in their desserts. I made this one today and tested it on my mom asked her to guess the secret ingredient-she was dumbfounded! She started listing things from a traditional brownie recipe but when I told her sweet potato she was in such shock! Mine haven’t cooled completely yet but I think they turned out a little bit cakier than yours 🙁 but they are so gooood! Honestly just like a regular brownie recipe 🙂
Wondering how much dates or date paste to use. I tend to use that as sweetener when I bake or make things like Avocado Chocolate Pudding.
Dear Katie i love this brownie but i like to make them with a sub for the nutbutter. What are good products i can juse?
Love Tirza
Sunbutter works if you need an allergy-friendly one!
I just made these and they’re fantastic. My husband and 3-year-old won’t touch sweet potatoes but they’ll never guess they’re in there. I can’t wait for them to try some so I can make the big reveal!
Oh my goodness! Such unbelievable decadence! I used sunbutter and almond flour in mine and sprinkled raw cacao nibs and walnuts on top. I ended up baking it 35 minutes. It. Was. Divine! Thanks for a great recipe- this one a keeper!
Just made those and how yummy they are! I’ve kinda given up hope of eating anything like it when I stopped consuming gluten, dairy and eggs.
Have questions: the brownies never settled – too gooey, the consistency of mousse (still taste delicious!) – do I need to bake them longer?
Another question: if I use coconut oil instead of PB, would I still add 1 cup of it?
Can you put them in the fridge loosely covered overnight? That’s one of Katie’s tricks to making brownies firm up without getting overcooked! We haven’t tried oil in this recipe, but I’d love to know if it would work. Be sure to report back if you try!
These are crazy good. I usually make them with half almond, half peanut. Then a mixture of stevia, coconut sugar, and maltitol syrup to make them a little more moist. Then I make a kind of genache with almond milk or cream, vanilla, salt, baking chocolate, stevia and maltitol syrup. Then I sprinkle additional vegan mini chips on the genache and kind of mush them in. Then I freeze it and cut it into bite size pieces and put them in a ziplock bag. Just a 1″ square or two and my chocolate craving is toast! And of course I double the recipe so they will be around a long time. By far my new favorite vegan dessert recipe! Thank you Katie, you rock!
Great recipe! I substituted half a banana and honey for the sugar, and it turned out really good! The consistency was a little more cakey than I expected, possibly because of my substitutions or because I baked it a little long. (I baked in 2 smaller pans because I don’t have one the right size, so I lowered cooking time to 17 min, which still might have been too much). No complaints here though! Tasty and less guilty!
I’ve been trying to buy your cookbook on line, but it constantly defaults to PayPal. I don’t have a paypal account, so I can’t put it on a standard charge card. Also, is it an actual book, I don’t want a e-book.
Kate
Hi! We do have a non PayPal option, but unfortunately the closest thing we have to a hardcover version is a pdf version that many readers are getting so they can print it out and have a hard copy to hold in their hands. We really wish this one could have been hardcover and appreciate so much that you wanted it in the first place if it could have been!
Jason (media relations)
My daughter is on a strict meal plan and was craving brownies. These were great with brown rice flour and carob chips subbed in. I even enjoyed these and the leftovers froze beautifully!