Ooey Gooey Yummy Black Bean Brownies

One thing I keep seeing pop up on my feed has been variations of black bean or zucchini brownies. Before the quarantines started my friend had a bake-off at work and the winner was actually black bean brownies. Knowing how delicious my friend’s treats were, and knowing that these could have overtook hers, I had to try them for myself.

Since I was unable to get my hands on the recipe of the winner, I did a quick search through the recipes that I found online and they all seemed to point back to a blog, Chocolate Covered Katie. I found her particular recipe had almost 1500 reviews and a 4.92 rating. I just had to see if it lived up to the hype!

Here is the original post of her recipe: https://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/no-flour-black-bean-brownies/

This my experience trying them in Seven Easy Steps:

These are the ingredients needed and a picture of the ones I actually used:

• 1 1/2 cups black beans (1 15-oz can, drained and rinsed very well)
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup quick oats
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/4 cup coconut or vegetable oil (I actually used 1/8 cup of coconut and 1/8 cup vegetable oil)
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Step One: Preheat Oven to 350 degrees F

Step Two: Add all the dry ingredients except the chocolate chips to your food processer.

Step Three: Add all the wet ingredients and process until smooth.

The batter should be blended until smooth without any lumps.

Step Four: Gently fold in the chocolate chips until well incorporated.

Step Five: Grease an 8″x8″ glass dish, then pour in the batter.

Step Six: Bake 18 minutes

Step Seven: Cool 10 minutes

ENJOY!!!

So I am sure you are wondering, did these really live up to the hype?! YES THEY DID!

They are not cakey like some box brownies, they are actually more on the fudgy side, trust me, no one is complaining.

I actually brought them to my husband, and didn’t tell him they were made of beans, he had no idea! I would suggest serving them to your guests first and THEN tell them what they are eating.

You will be shocked at how good they really are given they don’t have any gluten (flour), dairy, eggs, or sugar (besides inside the chocolate chips)!

Katie recommends refrigerating them overnight to let them firm up, but we loved them fresh out of the oven.

These are definitely best warm! I would microwave it after refrigerating it.

A note on health…

For those of you who are counting calories, Katie lists these brownies as having 115 calories per serving which is 9 to 12 brownies per batch (https://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/black-bean-brownies-calories-and-nutrition-facts/).

I found a box of brownie mix in my pantry and it is listed as 160 calories per brownie, yielding 20 brownies for the same pan size.

To put it another way, if you made the prepared brownie box it is 3200 calories for the whole pan while the Black Bean Brownies are only 1380 calories for the whole pan, which is less than half.

So half the calories, without compromising taste or the ooey gooey fudgyness, what more could you ask for!?

Hope you liked these as much as I did! Let me know what you think, would you change anything?