I love incorporating healthy elements into recipes and this black bean brownie recipe is a testament to how it works. These easy black bean brownies are so easy you can even use a blender! And, if you like these brownies, you might also like our salted caramel brownies.
Black Bean Brownies
Brownies are a great dessert staple. They are quick and easy and if you keep a few key ingredients on hand you can always throw together a batch of brownies. We make brownies for pot lucks because they are easy to make and very portable. We also love that they’re a finger food so you don’t need to bring any utensils to serve.
These black bean brownies look just like regular brownies. If you never told a soul they had beans in them, they’d never guess. Really. So, why put black beans in brownies?
The black beans add fiber, potassium, and protein.
- Fiber can help with bloating and constipation.
- Potassium helps with blood pressure.
- Protein will keep you feeling full longer.
Black Bean Brownies Ingredients
One of the reasons I love this recipe is because I usually have all the ingredients in my pantry. You won’t need anything fresh except that eggs and I ALWAYS have eggs. If you’re a baker like me, you’ll have all these recipe ingredients in your pantry.
Not to mention the eggs, but I always keep extra bags of chocolate chips on hand. You never know when you need to make a batch of our healthy almond butter chocolate chip cookies or our chocolate chip sandwich cookie or just grab a little sweet treat without a ton of calories.
For this black bean recipe you’ll need
- black beans (drained and rinsed) – canned is fine
- half a cup chocolate chips – good quality chips are best. We use milk chocolate for this recipe.
- cocoa powder – again, a good quality cocoa powder is best. Spend a minute to sift the cocoa to make sure the lumps are out and it’s smooth so it will incorporate into the other ingredients
- instant coffee – don’t leave the instant coffee out! This brings out the flavor of the chocolate and will help mask the black beans.
- Eggs – use room temperature eggs
- sugar
- oil
- flour
- salt
Black Bean Brownies in Blender
Did you know you can make brownies in the blender? Yes, just mix all the ingredients in the blender and use the pulse setting until it’s smooth. You may need to stop and scrape down the sides and blend again.
This time, I used a food processor for this recipe. It works very similar to the blender approach, but I actually like it a bit better because the base of the food processor is wider than the blender and I feel it mashes the black beans better. But, as I said, I’ve used both methods to make black bean brownies and both work really well! And, either way, it’s a one bowl method and you have less to clean up!
How to Make Black Bean Brownies
- Start with the beans. Be sure to rinse the beans, then just place them in the blender or food processor.
- The cocoa needs to be sifted. Cocoa typically is clumpy, so you need to do a quick sift and it will look like light brown powdered sugar. You’ll also be adding flour, sugar, baking powder, instant coffee (to enrich the chocolate flavor), and the other ingredients.
- One square pan creates about a dozen perfectly sized little brownies. Bigger than a bite, but small enough that you don’t feel guilty.
- I like to use parchment in the pan to make for easy brownie removal, but it’s optional. Plus, it makes for less to clean at the end.
- I cooled them on a wire rack and kept the dog away from the kitchen so she wouldn’t snarf them up.
The neighborhood kids saw what I was making and were eyeballing these sweets. I gave them each one in a baggie, saying to take it home and ask their parents if they could have it and to not eat it before dinner. Wouldn’t you know that eight-year-olds don’t have a whole lot of willpower! They started with “just a taste” and before I knew it, their baggies were empty.
Want more chocolate recipes?
- Sweet potato frosting
- Almond butter chocolate chip cookies
- Boston creme donut holes
- Dark chocolate cake with mocha frosting
Black Bean Brownies
Ingredients
- one can black beans
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon instant coffee
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 chocolate chips mini's work well
- 1/3 cup flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Grease 9 x 9 square brownie pan
- Rinse beans in colander
- In blender or food processor puree beans and oil.
- Add eggs, cocoa, sugar, coffee, and vanilla. Pulse until blended.
- Melt half of the chocolate chips in microwave or over double boiler.
- Add melted chocolate to mixture and pulse to combine.
- In small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Combine wet mixture with dry mixture. You can put the dry mixture in the blender or food process or or just pour it into the dry mixture bowl and mix by hand.
- Stir in remaining chocolate chips.
- Pour mixture into baking pan.
- Bake 20 minutes at 350 or until the edges are done, but the middle is still shiny.
- Let cool 15 minutes.
- Cut and serve.
- Optional: top with a dusting of powdered sugar.
Nutrition
Did You Make This Recipe?
Don't forget to share it with me on @thebalancingmom and follow on Tiktok @balancingmotherhood and Pinterest @thebalancingmom for more!
What's For Dinner?
Find a recipe for dinner tonight! Get our Top 10 Most Popular recipes ebook sent right to your email.
Comments & Reviews
Anne says
I’m definitely going to try these! I’ve tried in the past to sneak in pureed spinach into my brownie recipe but my family could detect it. So, I’m looking forward to trying this recipe! Thanks for sharing!
Alicia at BalancingMotherhood.com says
I’ve tried the spinach ones too and didn’t like them because I could see a piece of spinach! BUT, I think I’m going to try them again. Hope you like these … you can’t tell they have the beans in them.
Felicity Speirs says
What is the measure for the black beans please? I will be using my own soaked and cooked beans.
Alicia says
It’s 15 ounces.