Chocolate flourless sweet potato brownies, high in protein and fiber, and free of dairy and gluten. Very fudgy, refined-sugar-free and full of hidden veggies! No bake or bake, your choice! And a no nuts option!
Sweet Potato Brownies (bake or no bake)
These sort-of-fudgy, sort-of-cakey brownies are awesome! And sooo easy to make. Just blend (or stir), pour and bake (or freeze).
They are flourless, gluten-free, and can be nut-free.
I made them vegan with a flax egg but I know friends who used an egg and got a higher rise. No matter, either way, this will be your sweet potato brownie recipe go-to, I promise! And that’s a bit step for me. I don’t make promises often.
Baking sweet potatoes into brownies is nothing new, but how about adding protein so they are a fantastic workout snack, both pre- and post? I’ve tweaked this recipe to add in a nutritional powerhouse ingredient, wait until you see!
Sweet Potatoes Make Healthy Brownies
Sweet potatoes are generally healthy being high in fiber, vitamins and minerals, and having a low impact on raising blood sugar. And they provide carbohydrates – healthy carbs – needed to burn as energy. So I removed the maple syrup and replaced the sweetener with dates which add a slew of nutrition and fiber.
So this makes them truly excellent as both a snack for energy, and for a post, and pre-workout snack. Also, being high in antioxidants, sweet potatoes help reverse muscle damage caused by workout stress. And finally, of course, replace the lost potassium.
Sweet Potato Brownies Are As A Protein Snack
Since a solid workout snack depends largely on protein and healthy carbs – adding another nutrient-dense source to this recipe makes sense. But not just any ingredient – I added nut butter to contribute protein, fiber, healthy carbs and more.
They also give the brownie great texture and you can’t taste any nut butter-y taste if that’s an issue. Just chooooccccallaaatee.
How Do These Sweet Potato Brownies Taste?
Speaking of, let’s be specific about taste. First of all, I got to tell you how versatile this recipe is. It can be:
- Baked
- Not baked. As in, “no bake” as in “frozen” then refrigerated?
- It can be split in half and baked in cupcake papers
- It can be blobbed onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet and made as cookies. Brownie cookies. Oh boy.
So whether, you decide to bake or not, the final flavor is sweet but not very sweet – if you want a sweeter taste, taste-test batter and add a touch more maple syrup. Or, here’s a trick, add cinnamon, this creates the impression of sweetness without actually adding more sugar.
And if you are looking for topping options, you could make an icing or just drizzle on some melted chocolate and almond chips like I did here.
How to Make Sweet Potato Brownies?
Pretty simple!
1. Just blend up or stir in a measuring cup all ingredients. Almond butter, sweet potato, flax egg, maple syrup, cacao powder, vanilla, baking soda and salt.
2. Pour into a parchment-lined pan and bake at 350 F for 25 minutes! OR put the pan in the freezer for an hour, cut and store refrigerated. OR blob 2 tbsp of batter in rows onto parchment-lined cookie sheet, sprinkle with chocolate chips, and bake at 350 F for 15 minutes or until crackly on top.
3. Whether you made brownies or cookies, sprinkle chocolate chips on once baking is complete. You can even pop the pan back in the oven for 30 seconds to melt the chips. However, you should cool a bit before trying to spread the chips however, or the top of the brownies will rip. Cool, and eat!
Recipe Swaps for Sweet Potato Brownies
There are a few.
Sweet Potatoes
1. You can use raw sweet potato if you can chop is finely enough, but then you must use a high-powered blender to mix batter, you couldn’t stir it.
2. You can use cooked sweet potato – I provide easy microwave cooking instructions in the recipe below.
3. You can use pureed sweet potato. And you can swap sweet potato for pumpkin (cooked or pureed) or even pureed butternut squash. This brand, Farmers Market, sells their BPA-free, organic cans in markets and online here.
Corn Starch
This is necessary to thicken the curd. Sometimes you can use arrowroot, but I have had mixed results. I know that corn starch is also called corn flour in other countries.
Crust Flours
I used coconut to create a cookie-like texture. You need a highly-absorbent flour for this. Cassava sometimes works. Perhaps tapioca flour? But my daughter is allergic to tapioca so I haven’t tried it.
You need to almond flour for substance, although I think oat flour or quinoa flour would also work but not taste as good.
I think that is all I have to say. I hope you try these bars and report back to me how it went! Either comment below or DM me on Instagram. I always answer!
Do you want to try my other vegan brownies? My Mocha brownies and original No bake brownies are absolute read favs!
Try More Vegan Brownies Here
Mocha Brownies
No Bake Brownies
Brownie Bites
Pumpkin Brownies
Cake like Brownies
Chocolate Buckwheat Vegan Flourless Brownies
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Sweet Potato Brownies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup sweet potatoes (I used canned - bpa-Free and organic, but raw or freshly baked and peeled also work here)
- 1/2 cup nut butter (I used almond but use sunbutter to make it nut free)
- 1/4 cup cacao powder
- 6 tbsp maple syrup (although I have heard that date paste works as well, same amount)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 flax egg (Use 1 tbsp of ground flax in 2 tbsp of water, and let sit first at least 15 minutes)
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
Instructions
Prep Work
- Preheat oven to 350 FLine a loaf pan with parchment, overhanging on the sides.
Prepare Sweet Potato
- TO use canned: Open a can and measure out 1/2 cup of puree. Refrigerate the rest and use within 3 days, or freeze it for longer.TO use cooked: Wash a large sweet potato, pierce it with a fork on many sides, wrap it in a paper towel, and microwave on high for 5 minutes or more depending on the size. Remove, peel and process or blend up sweet potato in a blender with a few tsp of water until you have a creamy puree.TO use raw: Wash, peel, and dice into teeny pieces. Then puree in a blender with a few tsp of water until you have a creamy puree. This won't work in a regular blender or food processor.
Make Brownies
- Blend up all the ingredients in a high speed blender until you have a smooth batter. As always, you can taste-test and add a touch more maple syrup, but I wouldn't, haha. You can also just sprinkle a bit of cinnamon; that gives your taste-buds the illusion that the dessert is sweeter.
- TO BAKE: Pour the mixture into the loaf pan, tap to even the surface, and bake for 25 minutes. You can try to use a tester, but the inside is going to be fudgy. If you want to bake longer, just watch to be sure the top edges are blackening.TO NO-BAKE (or freeze): Pour the batter into your container of choice. The resulting frozen brownie is fudgy so I would use paper cupcake cups so you can just peel of the paper and eat. Dreamy!But if you want squares, you could also use a mold or pour it into an 8x8-inch parchment-lined pan, and cut the frozen mixture with a hot knife. The picture you see if my version of no-bake poured into a loaf pan - the resulting brownie was so thick, it was a lot of work to slice when frozen so that is why I recommend freezing in a larger pan to make the brownies not so high.
Other Ways To Bake
- As I mentioned in the blog post, this recipe is very versatile. You can plop tbsps of batter onto a cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 350 F to make brownie cookies. I would sprinkle these with chocolate chips while hot.You can also bake them in paper cupcake liners to make brownie cups. Probably 15 minutes at 350 F but you'lll have to test the time.
Storage
- Store the baked version in the refrigerator for about 3 days. After that they begin to dry out. The frozen version can last much longer.
Nutrition
Dee Dine is founder of Green Smoothie Gourmet, a plant based recipe blog, and author of the recent cookbook, Crazy Healthy with 4 Ingredients . On this blog you’ll find incredibly easy recipes with hidden veggies for anyone wanting to eat healthier, regardless of diet. Dee has graduate degrees in biology, immunology and journalism. More about Dee Dine here.
Connie Leung
Hello!!
Am I able to substitute the almond flour for coconut flour or oat flour?? I need to make these nut-free!! Thank youu
Dee Dine
Hi Connie,
Oat flour is the perfect substitute for almond flour. Not coconut flour, that is too absorbent. Thanks for the question, I added that nut-free option to the recipe for you! Best, Dee xx
Dee Dine
They are high in both protein and fiber, with protein coming from the sweet potatoes, rolled oats and almond flour. I am slowly updating all my recipes with nutritional info; just added it to this recipe thanks to your alert!
S. Steinmetz
I didn’t bake them at all. I didn’t have time, so I put them in the freezer. We just thawed them long enough to cut them, and have them stored frozen. They actually make a great no-bake recipe.
Dee Dine | Green Smoothie Gourmet
Great to read, thank you for your feedback. Dee xx
Sarah Bell
These came out perfect. I didn’t have oats so I used flaxseeds instead. They came out fudgy in the center. Will definitely make these again. I pinned it too.
Dee Dine | Green Smoothie Gourmet
Thank you Sarah! So glad you liked the recipe. Dee xx
Cathie
Hi! I made these last night and waited until today to try but I’m sad they are a very mushy consistency – I can’t cut. It’s almost like the batter before it was baked. I followed the Ingredients and directions to a T. What do you think went wrong? Should I freeze them?
Dee Dine | Green Smoothie Gourmet
Cathie, I am not sure what the variation is that caused your issue, but they are perfect as a no-bake frozen dessert! Dee xx