These super Healthy Black Bean Brownies are made without sugar, they are naturally vegan AND gluten-free, but without any strange ingredients! These were one of my creations for the Farmers’ Market I sold at a few years ago, always trying to offer what my clients wanted! 😉 I’ve made it a few times and it seemed to be a success, even with a young girl who told me she was glad that it had no sugar in it because she always gets headaches when she eats sugar and she doesn’t like it. That was one of the best comments I heard coming from a kid! And the best part was when she came back 15 min later to buy a second piece! 🙂
Healthy Black Bean Brownies | No Sugar, Vegan, Gluten-Free
For those who are not familiar with all those descriptive expressions in the title, here’s a quick summary:
- Vegan: means that no animal product or by-product is used, so no milk, no butter, no eggs, not even any honey
- Sugar-free/No sugar: that simply means that no sugar of any kind has been used, not even maple syrup or honey
- Gluten-free: no flour or any other ingredient used contains any gluten
These brownies are diabetic-friendly because they contain no sugar at all. They’re also great if you’re doing a sugar detox.
Diabetic-Friendly Lucuma Powder
Have you ever heard of lucuma powder? It’s a great ingredient to have in your kitchen, especially if you’re trying to reduce your sugar consumption, or if you have someone with diabetes in your family. One of the benefits of lucuma is that it doesn’t raise your blood sugar levels. It’s a whole food ingredient, meaning you get all the nutrients from it, and the powder is made from ground up lucuma fruit. The lucuma tree is native of Peru. A study has even shown that lucuma might have anti-inflammatory benefits, as well as help to regenerate our skin faster, which can help in wound healing and aging.
Above all, this is made with healthy wholesome ingredients! As some of my clients described it at the market, they’re “Guilt-free brownies”!
Enjoy!
ECP xo
P.S. If you’re ok eating a little bit of maple syrup, I highly recommend drizzling some Salted Maple Caramel Sauce on top for a scrumptious treat!
Healthy Black Bean Brownies | No Sugar, Vegan, Gluten-Free
These super Healthy Black Bean Brownies are made with No Sugar, Vegan and Gluten-Free! Perfect for most restrictive diets! Diabetic-friendly.
Ingredients
- 398 ml black beans 1 can, drained and rinsed
- 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 200 g melted baking chocolate
- 1 Tbsp pure organic vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup nut milk or other plant-based milk
- 1/2 cup whole raw hazelnuts ground in a coffee grinder
- 1/4 cup tapioca starch or GMO-free cornstarch
- 2/3 cup lucuma powder this is a great sugar replacement that is a whole food, not an extract
- 1/2 tsp fine grey sea salt
- 1/2 cup raw organic walnuts coarsely chopped
Toppings (optional)
- 1/4 cup raw hazelnuts + walnuts chopped
- 1/3 cup fresh organic berries
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8-inch baking pan with a small amount of olive oil, and set aside.
- In a blender or food processor, combine the black beans and olive oil. Then add the melted chocolate, vanilla, and nut milk, and blend until smooth. (Alternatively, if you don't have a blender or food processor, simply warm up the beans to soften them and mash them with a fork. Add the olive oil, melted chocolate, and vanilla, and mash together.)
- Scrape the mixture into a mixing bowl. Add the ground hazelnuts, tapioca starch, lucuma powder, sea salt, and mix until smooth. Stir in the walnut pieces, if using.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Add chopped nuts on top if using. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Let cool in the pan completely, then refrigerate for a few hours before cutting into 9 squares.
Recipe Notes
Store in an airtight container, up to 3 days.
Although this recipe calls for lucuma powder, you can substitute it with 1/2 cup organic cane sugar or maple syrup, if sugar is not a concern.
Note: I do not believe anyone should worry about counting calories, but here is the nutritional information for one serving
Calories: 469kcal | Fat: 34g | Saturated fat: 9g | Sodium: 139mg | Potassium: 613mg | Carbohydrates: 37g | Fiber: 16g | Sugar: 4g | Protein: 9g | Vitamin C: 0.7% | Calcium: 52% | Iron: 5.6%
Reblogged this on Recipe Reblog.
Your brownies look wonderful! I’ve never heard of lucuma powder, but I love that it’s a whole food sugar replacer. I’m gonna look it up! Happy holidays! Celeste 🙂
I discovered it only a few months ago, and just like you, I loved that it’s a wholefood option!
I’ve made black bean brownies before and they were delicious, though they used maple syrup as the sweetener. My dad is diabetic. I’ll have to check out the lucima powder so I can make him a batch
Definitely a good tool in your diabetic-friendly arsenal! Plus, everyone can enjoy them too, especially with some maple syrup caramel on top. Happy baking!
I love brownies and these are a hit, so delicious!
Glad you liked them! Can’t go wrong with healthy brownies, right?! 😉
Looking forward to making this recipe, since it’s so hard to find sugar-free recipes out there! (all call for maple syrup, other kinds of syrup, or rely on overly ripe bananas, dates, etc., which is tons of sugar anyway!! Or lots of artificial sweeteners including ‘-ol’, etc.)
I was wondering what pan size you used for baking the brownies?
Thanks in advance! 🙂
Thanks Lynn! I used a square 8 inch pan. I agree that it’s hard to find sugar-free recipes that don’t contain some artificial sweeteners, which are very unhealthy! Just a note about maple syrup, bananas and dates, as a nutritionist, I have to mention that these are natural sugars, and 1000 times better than the white stuff because even though they contain “sugars”, they also contain nutrients (fruits and dates also contain fibre), which is not the case for white sugar, since it’s been stripped of all minerals it contains when it’s raw. Although it’s best to use these in moderation of course, they are much better options and available to most. Lucuma powder is a great option too but it’s on the pricey side unfortunately. In all cases, moderation and no white sugar is always best. Happy baking! 🙂
Thanks a lot for the pan size! 🙂
I’m with you in that fruit sugar is way better than all the white stuff (the only thing I’ll use is green powdered stevia and not on everything, just when baking experiments).
I try to stay away from sweets altogether, though, since more and more research shows that all forms of sugar are at the root of most health problems. So I’m always trying to find the least sweet treat that still tastes good.
I agree, lucuma is expensive! But I want to give it a try and see how it works in your recipe 🙂
I’ve used it in smaller amounts combined with stevia (good results). On its own, I never thought it was enough (but I didn’t add anything close to the 2/3 cup in your recipe).
Good on you for taking care of your health through food!
It’s true that refined sugar is at the root of many illnesses, but too often people go from one extreme to another unfortunately. Whole fruits are healthy and provide us good nutrition and energy, some that we can’t get anywhere else, unlike white sugar, so 1-2 fruits per day is good for us. It provides us with complex energy and nutrients and fibre. When I was in nutrition school, I remember the manager of the school said that she hates fruits, but after learning about nutrition she realized that it’s part of a healthy balanced diet, so she forces herself to eat 1 fruit every day, even though she doesn’t like it. haha I thought it was funny.
Is the green powdered stevia the whole leaf? I read that extracts of the stevia plants can actually be dangerous. Whole food is always best, so makes sense. I did try whole stevia once and it was really gross for my taste. haha I found lucuma much more subtle, but yes, you do need to use quite a bit! Even 2/3 cup is lightly sweet. I’m sure you will love these brownies! Please let me know what you think after you’ve made them. If it’s not sweet enough for you, feel free to use 1 cup of lucuma (you might need to add a bit more liquid) 🙂