These gluten-free & dairy-free brownies are fudgy, chewy, and oh so delicious. Flakey sea salt paired with sweet and bold dark chocolate brings out the flavors in the small squares.
The perfect sweet treat for weekend baking. Or maybe the perfect Wednesday night baking session.
These chewy squares are gluten-free and dairy-free, so you can feel good about yourself while indulging in chocolate!
This was inspired by my double chocolate chip protein cookies, which are also infused with an abundance of dark chocolate chips and extra dark chocolate cocoa powder.
In short, who doesn’t love chocolate?!
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Clean ingredients
There is no oil in this recipe. This might be a shocker for some, but trust us, brownies can still taste incredible without the extra (empty) calories.
For reference, 1 tablespoon of olive oil is 119 calories. Let that sink in.
To make these brownies extra chewy, we use almond butter. It is the secret ingredient!
Almond butter has the perfect amount of fat and fiber, making it the perfect replacement for oil and flour in this brownie recipe.
We use raw almonds and blend the high-protein nut in our vitamix. However, if you choose to go with a store-bought jar, we love this one. It is runny and drippy…so blending is a breeze!
- Almond Butter or Raw Almonds
- Apple
- Flax Egg (or a real egg)
- Maple Syrup
- Dark Cocoa Powder
- Sugar-Free Dark Chocolate Chips
- Almond Milk
- Baking Powder
- Sea Salt
See recipe card for quantities.
Instructions
These gluten free dairy free brownies are so easy because you blend the batter in a high-speed blender. No dishes. You just have to clean the blender.
However, if you have a Vitamix, then it cleans itself! 🙂
Add raw almonds into the high-speed blender (i.e. Vitamix). The texture should look like an almond meal. Slightly thick. On the border of chopped-up nuts and almond butter. We will blend more later, so don’t worry if it does not resemble almond butter.
Throw in the other ingredients. Yes, please add an entire apple into the high-speed blender. More on why we use apples below.
After blending for ~1 minute, the batter should be smooth and look like brownie batter!
Add chocolate chips to the beautiful batter and add to a small lined loaf pan.
Raw apples in the batter?!
Yes, call us crazy, but chopping up a whole apple and throwing it into the Vitamix transforms this recipe.
Let us explain why:
- Reduce calorie intake – We are ditching the oil in this recipe, so the moisture in apples acts as an excellent substitute. One apple is 95 calories and contains a ton of fiber, vitamins, minerals, etc.
- Adding extra fiber – Yes, one apple has 4.5 grams of fiber.
- Moist brownies that last longer! – By adding apples or apple sauce to any baking recipe, the high water content in an apple will naturally make your brownies incredibly moist.
Variations
Okay, these brownies are absolutely perfect the way they are, but if you want to level up the flavors, we are here to show you a few different options.
- Chocolate Peanut butter – Who doesn’t love peanut butter? Try swapping the almond butter for peanut butter. It will taste like a recesses peanut butter cup!
- Mint Chocolate Chip – Add fresh mint leaves or mint droplets to your brownie batter. This will taste like mint chocolate chip ice cream but in a brownie format!
- Nutty Brownies – Add walnuts to the batter. Upgrade the texture!
- Extra Salty Brownies – Add crushed potato chips to the batter. Sounds weird, but it works.
Equipment
To make these blender brownies, you will need a vitamix.
We highly recommend the Vitamix as it will change your life and blend through anything! Including a whole apple and raw almonds.
The Vitamix makes a smoothie brownie batter in ~2 minutes. It’s wild and will blow your mind, and save you a ton of time and money (raw almond butter jars are so expensive and bulk almonds are a fraction of the price).
Storage
Store these babies in an air-tight container.
We kept them on the counter for ~2 days and they stayed fresh. If you don’t plan on eating them all in one sitting (like us) or over 2 days, then try throwing them in the freezer.
When you want to enjoy a square, throw it in the air fryer or microwave.
Top tip
Try chopping up a chocolate bar instead of buying chocolate chips. This will add a nice dimension to your gooey salted squares. We love this bar – it’s sugar-free!
📖 Recipe
Fudgey Double Chocolate Sea Salt Brownies
Equipment
- 1 Vitamix or High Speed Blender
Ingredients
Wet Ingredients
- ¾ Cup Raw Almonds (or you can use ¼ cup of drippy almond butter)
- 1 Raw Apple Remove the core & seeds
- ⅓-1/2 Cup Sugar Free Maple Syrup
- 2 Flax Eggs (or you can use 1 real egg)
- 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 2 Tablespoons Plant Milk
Dry Ingredients
- ⅓ Cup Dark Cocoa Powder
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
- Pinch Salt For the batter.
Toppings & Mix Ins
- Handful Dark Chocoalte Chips
- 1 Tablespoon Flakey Sea Salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350.
- Distribute the raw almonds on a cookie sheet. Roast in the oven for 10 minutes. Make sure they do not burn.
- Allow the almonds to cool before adding them to the Vitamix to blend. Begin to blanch the almonds. Continue to blend until almonds form a thick paste.
- Add liquid ingredients and dry ingrediets. Blend until smooth. Do not add the chocoalte chips or sea salt yet.
- Pour the batter into a baking pan lined with parchment paper.
- Mix the chocoalte chips into the batter.
- Add more chocolate chips on top & sprinkle the sea salt flakes on top.
- Place in the oven for 25-30 minutes. Keep an eye on it!
- Allow the brownies to cool before cutting. Enjoy! 🙂
FAQ
Questions you ask and we answer!
- How to make dairy-free gluten-free brownies? Great question. Take a look at the recipe above! 🙂
- How to make nut-free egg-free dairy free gluten free allergen-free brownies? Instead of adding almond butter, use tahini or sun butter. Seed butter is key here.
- How to dress up gluten-free brownies? We love to add a pinch of flakey sea salt or make a chocolate glaze.
- What is the butter substitute in recipes for dairy-free brownies? We use a combination of apples and almond butter to make these brownies fudgy and chewy! They are glorious.