A healthy recipe for protein brownies
Brownies are one of the desserts I can fondly remember as a child my mother making pretty often. The recipe she used was always so chocolate-y and gooey and delicious, which I am sure also meant it was loaded with lots of sugars and flours and other ingredients that made them extremely unhealthy. When I made this batch of brownies I had a few male taste testers over and when they asked what it was made with they were shocked to hear black beans was a part of this recipe as you can’t taste that ingredient at all! The recipe does call for a pretty large number of ingredients, but these are all pretty much staples in my baking pantry now and items I buy weekly as part of my grocery shopping. Most can be found either at your local Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s and also at a specialty shop or online.
Fast forward to today and being someone who aims to eat a pretty clean diet of high proteins and very few processed sugars. I wanted to come up with a protein recipe that would be tasty, high in protein but not dry and not enjoyable. When I cook with protein I always want the end result to taste delicious, not just be something I have to get down to get in more protein per day. So this recipes is great as the brownies still come out moist and delicious but they are not gooey or overly sweet.
- Black Bean & Chocolate Protein Brownies
- 1 cup of egg whites
- 1 scoop of BodyTech Rich Chocolate protein powder – link to buy
- 1 can of unsalted cooked black beans
- 1/3 tbsp of low sodium baking powder
- 4 tbsp coconut nectar syrup low glycemic sweetener – link to buy
- 3 tbsp of coconut flour – link to buy
- 3 tbsp of peanut butter or almond butter (I used D’s Naturals in Vanilla Maple) – link to buy
- 5 heaping tbsp of cottage cheese
- 3 tbsp of cocoa powder
- ¼ tbsp of sea salt
- 3 tbsp of cocoa nibs – link to buy
How to make:
- Preheat oven to 385 degrees
- Add all ingredients into a food processor or blender (I love my Breville) and mix until all ingredients are smooth. I use my blender to mash a bit of the banana then add it all into one big bowl.
- Add mixture to a baking tin which you should have sprayed with some olive oil spray to prevent sticking
- Bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out dry by poking into the center of the mixture
- Remove and let cool, then cut into equal squares
When it comes to baking of course everyone wants things to taste super sweet like the real recipes, this is why I make sure to use healthy sweetener options. All of the ones I use are really great options like coconut nectar which is a low glycemic index sweetener syrup, it is great and super thick so it’s good in this recipe. I also only use stevia as my sweetener in all foods and drinks and never ever use Splenda or Equal or aspartame products. When it comes to butters and spreads there are so many new ones on the market that I love trying out. I don’t buy any peanut butters from the regular section of the grocery store; all of mine are the natural kind that are not name brand that I grew up on, but I like Buff Bake, P28 Foods and D’s Naturals for my spreads. For recipes these blend very well and are also high in protein content which is what I like. For cocao products in this recipe I used both cocao nibs and cacao powder, not to be confused with COCOA powder.
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