No Bake Brownies

These No Bake Brownies are easy healthy fudgy brownies made in less than 20 minutes without an oven. This healthy dessert recipe is also naturally refined, sugar-free, dairy-free, and vegan.

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I love brownies of all kinds, like my Black Bean Brownies, Flourless Yogurt Mousse Brownies, or Greek Yogurt Brownies. But sometimes, you want the taste and texture of brownies without having to bake them!

For this, I have these No-Bake Brownies. They are made with raw ingredients like nuts, dates, and cocoa powder. These no-bake brownies are not baked in the oven. They get all their fudgy chocolate texture as they set in the fridge.

Ingredients and Substitutions

These brownies are healthy brownies made with a combination of raw foods that are packed with nutrients. Let’s see the single ingredients you need in this recipe:

• Walnuts – You can also use pecans, but you need nuts higher in fats than almonds to make fudgy brownies.
• Sunflower Seeds – They add a lovely fudgy texture in combination with walnuts. However, if you don’t have sunflower seeds, add more walnuts or pecans.
• Unsweetened Cocoa Powder – Use high-quality Dutch cocoa powder or cacao powder for a stronger flavor.
• Medjool Dates – Fresh, pitted Medjool dates are the best for no-bake brownies. They are full of texture and have the best sweet flavors.
• Maple Syrup or any refined sugar-free sweetener you have on hand like coconut nectar, date syrup, or agave syrup.
• Vanilla Extract – For flavor
• Dark Chocolate Chips or any chocolate chips you love.

How To Make No-Bake Brownies

You don’t need much to make delicious no-bake brownies. First, you must have a good food processor. Indeed, most no-bake recipes require breaking or pulsing nuts into a powder to form the raw batter. If your blade is not strong enough, it may result in bites and pieces into your dough.

So it is necessary to have a food processor to make these raw brownies. Next, make sure you have all the wholesome ingredients needed for these healthy brownies.

1. Before you start, prepare an 8-inch x 8-inch square brownie pan. Line the pan with parchment paper and lightly oil the paper with avocado oil or cooking spray. Set it aside.
2. Blend the walnuts, sunflower seeds, and salt in a food processor using the S blade attachment.
3. Use a medium-high speed until the nuts and seeds turn into a fine ground that almost looks like coarse flour, as seen in the picture below.
4. Set aside in a mixing bowl.
5. Bring back the food processor bowl, no need to wash it, add the pitted Medjool dates, water, vanilla extract, and maple syrup.
6. Blend on medium-high speed until it forms a creamy paste. You may have to stop the food processor a few times, use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl and repeat.
7. When the texture is creamy and smooth, stop the food processor,
8. Add the ground nuts and seeds from step 1 and process a few times until well incorporated.

9. Cocoa powder is full of fiber and highly liquid absorbent. That’s the reason why I like to add it at the end of the process.
10. Process until it forms a thick batter with all the cocoa powder incorporated. The batter will burst on the sides of the food processor bowl, and you will need to scrape down the sides a few times. If the batter gets too thick, dry, and impossible to blend, add an extra tablespoon of water. However, don’t overdo the water in no-bake brownies because they won’t firm up.
11. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish. It will be thick and sticky, so you may like to grease your hand with coconut oil to prevent the dough from sticking to your fingers.
12. Press evenly into the pan and refrigerate while making the brownie frosting.

Brownie Chocolate Frosting

You don’t necessarily have to frost no-bake brownies, but who doesn’t like frosting? I highly recommend adding this peanut butter chocolate ganache frosting for flavor and here are the frosting ingredients you need:

• Dark Chocolate – I am using 85% cocoa chocolate bars or 70% for a sweeter frosting.
• Peanut Butter or almond butter
• Salt

1. In a saucepan, add the three ingredients and melt the chocolate over low-medium heat, constantly stirring with a rubber spatula.
2. When melted, pour the frosting on top of the brownies, and sprinkle freeze-dried raspberries or extra chopped walnuts on top.
3. Chill the brownies for at least 2 hours before slicing for the best texture.

Storage Instructions

You can store these no-bake vegan brownies in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 10 days. It’s also possible to freeze the no-bake brownie squares in a freezer bag. Make sure you don’t stack them, or they will freeze in one block. You would struggle to separate them for thawing just one square at a time. Thaw in the fridge the day before or a few hours at room temperature.

Allergy Swaps

These healthy brownies are naturally gluten-free, dairy-free, and egg-free. However, if you need I listed below some options to replace the ingredients used in this recipe.

• Nut-Free – You can replace the walnuts with more sunflower seeds and use oat milk or any nut-free milk you love. For the frosting, swap the peanut butter for sunflower seed butter.
• Date-Free – If you have an allergy to dates, you can try dried figs or dried raisins.
• Maple Syrup – Any liquid sweetener works in this recipe. Feel free to use your favorite one.

Serving

You can serve these no-bake brownies plain or add some delicious ingredients on top like:

• A drizzle of nut butter – like almond butter, peanut butter, or cashew butter.
• Chopped nuts
• Unsweetened coconut
• Freeze-dried fruits for color and tangy flavor
• Chocolate chips
• Seed butter like a drizzle of sunflower seed butter but watch out, the taste of sunflower butter is slightly bitter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below I answered your most common questions about this no-bake dessert recipe.

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