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A healthy and delicious recipe for avocado brownies! Replace oil or butter with heart-healthy avocados for a delicious and nutritious dessert. These rich and chocolatey brownies are actually good for you!
Brownies with Avocados!
You can have your brownies and eat them too with these healthy avocado brownies!
In place of more traditional fats like butter or oil, we’ve used avocado which keeps them 100% dairy-free and also saturated fat free.
We also swapped regular wheat flour for coconut flour making these brownies totally paleo (technically not keto because of the maple syrup) and low carb. Not to mention using maple syrup for sweetener – honestly these brownies are delish!
Ingredients in Avocado Brownies
- Avocado – one large, ripe avocado.
- Applesauce – you could also replace with 1 large, mashed banana if you don’t have applesauce.
- Maple Syrup – for sweetness. You could replace with honey, if desired.
- Vanilla extract – for flavor.
- Eggs – I know 3 eggs seems like a lot but it’s necessary for the ratio with coconut flour.
- Coconut flour – do not skip or replace! I’ve never had any luck making these with a different type of flavor so proceed with caution if replacing.
- Dutch-processed cocoa powder – do not use regular cocoa powder or cacao, they will be too bitter!
- Sea salt – helps to amplify the sweetness. Omit if watching sodium levels.
- Baking soda – to help these avocado brownies rise
- Chocolate chips – you can also use chocolate chunks. Highly recommend!
Learn how to make Avocado Brownies Step-by-Step
Are these avocado brownies healthy?
Love it or hate it, these avocado brownies are healthy! Will these taste like Betty Crocker boxed brownies? Hell.to.the.no. But they will taste totally delicious! Better yet they’re made with super healthy swaps like:
- Avocado for butter
- Coconut flour for regular all-purpose flour
- Applesauce for fudgier texture (you can also replace with 1 large banana if you don’t have any)
This is probably the most controversial recipe I’ve ever posted. If you read the comments you will see that people love them or absolutely hate them! At the end of the day it comes down to taste buds. Like I said, if you like a super decadent and sweet brownie, these are not for you. However, if your tastebuds are acclimated to not that much sugar and grain-free recipes, you will love this avocado brownie recipe.
Tips for Making Avocado Brownies
- Make sure your avocados are ripe – but not TOO ripe. They should be green and creamy inside
- Coconut flour is essential to keep these brownies paleo – do NOT replace with another flour (even almond flour) unless you know how to adapt flours
- SIFT YOUR FLOUR! I’m a #lazybaker so I often skip this step but if you watch the video above you’ll see that these avocado brownies come out clumpy if you forget to sift your flour. Still delicious but the texture is off.
- Use dutch-processed cocoa powder. Because these brownies are already rich, using unprocessed cocoa will make them too bitter.
- Depending on how you like your brownies adjust the baking time for texture. At 25 minutes they come out on the fudgier side but if you prefer more fudgy bake for less or more cake-like bake for longer
How To Store These Avocado Brownies
I prefer to store leftovers in the refrigerator though they’ll last for 2 days on the counter in an airtight container.
My favorite way to eat these though is directly from the freezer! I know…sounds gross but it tastes like fudge. Just cut into 16 brownies (or desired amount) and once fully cool place them in a sealed ziplock bag or airtight container to freeze. Take one out and enjoy right away or let sit for 5-10 minutes to thaw up a bit. They’ll last up to 6 months in the freezer (though they never last that long here!)
More Healthy Brownies!
- Dark Chocolate Tahini Brownies
- Sweet Potato Peanut Butter Brownies
- The Ultimate Grain-Free Brownies
- Raw Walnut Brownies
- Black Bean Brownies
Avocado Brownies
A healthy and delicious recipe for avocado brownies! Replace oil or butter with heart-healthy avocados for a delicious and nutritious dessert. These rich and chocolatey brownies are actually good for you!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 16 brownies 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Bake
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
- 1 large avocado
- 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (replace with 1 large banana if you don’t have any)
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 large eggs
- 1/2 cup coconut flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened dutch-processed cocoa powder**
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup of chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Grease an 8 x 8 inch baking pan with coconut oil or line with parchment paper.
- In a blender or food processor blend avocado, applesauce, maple syrup and vanilla.*
- Add these wet ingredients to a large mixing bowl and whisk in eggs.
- In a separate bowl, sift your coconut flour and dutch-processed cocoa powder. Mix in sea salt and baking soda.
- Slowly add your dry ingredients to avocado mixture and stir until well-combined.
- Stir in chocolate chips.
- Add batter to baking dish and spread so top is even.
- Place in oven to bake for 25-30 minutes (slightly less for fudgier brownies or slightly longer for more cake-like brownies).
- Allow to cool for 20 minutes before cutting into 16 brownies.
- Keep them on the counter in an airtight container at room-temperature for up to 2 days or for a longer shelf-life store in the fridge or freezer (see notes above).
*You can also mash these together by hand but make sure that you mash it up very well and there are no clumps.
** Make sure you use dutch-processed otherwise your brownies will taste bitter – this is the step that people often forget!
Thanks for the wonderful recepie. I tried these and it came out do well… yummmmmy
Happy to hear that!
Hey girl! My name is Kendall and I’m Alexis of Hummusapien’s food lovin’ sidekick. I just made these last night on a whim for my family (already had all of the ingredients) and they were AMAZING. Like idk how I’ve gone so long without making them. I only had two eggs so I put in a tablespoon of melted coconut oil and also added a few dashes on cinnamon and they still turned out delish. Will definitely be making these for all gatherings and for fun all of the time.
Happy Thanksgiving!
These brownies did not work for me. The measurements seem totally wrong. There was far to much powder to liquid and I ended up with a disgusting powdery mess that was not even bakable. I think something has gone wrong somewhere in this recipe. Could you give the powder weight in grams or ounces ?
These are fantastic!! Love that they are not only healthy but delicious!! Thanks for sharing this recipe 🙂
So happy to hear that! Enjoy!
I just made them. They are awesome!!!
So happy to hear!
With so many comments on here about these being too dry or bitter, I decided to tweak this a bit.
Dryness, I assume, would be from the coconut flour, which soaks up a lot of moisture. General practice is if you are using coconut flour in a recipe that uses normal flour, you should add one egg for every oz of coconut flour used. 1/2 cup of coconut flour is 2oz, and the recipe calls for 3 eggs, two of which are being sucked up by the coconut flour. Most normal brownie recipes call for more than 1 egg, so I added an extra.
I could not find dutch processed cocoa at the supermarket. Dutch processed cocoa is basically cocoa that is washed during processing with an alkaline solution to make it less better. Recipes with normal cocoa usually call for baking soda to achieve a similar effect. I was really surprised that you call for baking soda in this recipe because the article on dutch processed cocoa I read said NOT to used baking soda with it. That seemed to indicate that this recipe is more bitter than usual, so I added an additional tsp.
I followed another commentor and added an extra 1/4 cup maple syrup (and 1/4 applesauce because I had extra). My ingredient list was as follows:
1 hass avocado
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cup maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 tsp baking soda
Baked for 35 mins
Turned out moist – a little too moist – I probably didn’t need the extra applesauce. They weren’t bitter, so I think the extra baking soda is a must if using normal cocoa powder. I think these could also stand with doubling the vanilla.
Won’t try these again, though. These are definitely not “fudgy” brownies. They are cakey – moist or dry are your options.
How many grams of sugar would you say is in a batch of these brownies?
I’m going to ignore the negative comments and give this a shot. Tell me though, to they taste maple-y? I don’t like maple syrup and I was thinking about swapping it out for raw honey.
Hey made these yesterday and I’m pretty happy with the way they turned out! They’re extremely moist and delicious!
this recipe calls for regular maple syrup, but do you think sugar free would work? Or is there a specific kind you used?
I wouldn’t recommend sugar-free! I use pure maple syrup.