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Fudgy Lentil Brownies. High Protein Brownies that dont taste beany! Just process and bake. Vegan Gluten-free Recipe. Can be Nut-free
I love my Chickpea Peanut Butter Cookie Pie (you all do too, so many remakes!!). Currently, 1. I am on a break from chickpeas, 2. Chickpeas can tend to dry out. 3. I know black bean brownies are the rage, but the texture hasn’t worked for me. Enter lentils. Red Lentils.
The Quick cooking Lentils that dont have a skin, hence will not add the skin texture like beans. Cook the lentils, melt some chocolate, Process together with a bit of nut butter and the rest of the ingredients to make a batter. Pour into a pan and bake! Super Fudgy, Super Delicious!
These are not the usual brownie texture when they are just baked, but settle into a more fudgy state after cooling, esp chilling. For the regular super gooey, super chocolatey, super brownie Brownies, See the version in my book! There is a gluten-free option too.
There brownies are higher in protein with the lentils and nut butter, are gooey and chocolatey and perfect for the chocolate craving! Lets get to these.
More Fun Bakes from the blog
- No Bake Hazelnut Walnut Brownies. GF
- Vegan Pumpkin Brownies
- Brownie Cookie Dough bars. GF
- Gluten-free Brownies and Brownie Mix. GF
- Vegan Almond Butter Blondies with Chocolate Chips , GF
- Bleuberry Brownies!
- Coconut Flour Brownies GF
You can use cooked chickpeas in these brownies. Just bake them until set at the edges. If you make these brownies, do let me know how they turned out! 7+ gm of Protein per serve!
Cook the lentils.
Lentil Brownies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup red lentils
- 3 tbsp oil
- 3 tbsp maple syrup
- 1/2 cup vegan semi sweet chocolate chips, ( or a mix of semi sweet and dark)
- 4 tbsp sugar, (1 tbsp more for sweeter)
- 1/3 cup nut butter (heaping cup), (I like cashew butter), Use sunflower seed butter for Nutfree
- 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup flour of choice, All purpose, oat or glutenfree blend for gluten-free (add a tbsp starch if using gf flour and not a blend)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup vegan chocolate chips to top and mix in.
Instructions
- Line a brownie pan with parchment paper ( I use 8 by 8 inch). Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/180ºc . 9 by 5 loaf also works
- Rinse the red lentils. Drain and add to a saucepan. Add 1.5 cups of water and cook partially covered over medium heat. Cook for 12 to 13 minutes or until the lentils are cooked (total time including coming to a boil). Stir once in between. Cool for a few minutes, then drain any excess water from the saucepan (there should be hardly any). Add to a food processor or blender. (For instant pot, pressure cook for 2 minutes then quick release after 5 minutes, drain well and use)
- Heat maple syrup and oil in a skillet over medium heat. When hot, add chocolate and sugar and mix. Take off heat. Continue to mix until chocolate is melted and well combined
- Add the melted chocolate and the rest of the ingredients(except 1/4 cup chocolate chips) to the food processor and process until a smooth batter. (Add 1 tbsp Dutch processed Cocoa powder for chocolatey brownies (highly recommended as chocolate chips vary in flavor). ***
- Pour into prepared brownie pan. Sprinkle 2 tbsp chocolate chips on top and mix them in. Sprinkle more to top. (I like to use mini chocolate chips to top). Bake for 32to 35minutes. Bake them a bit longer for more set and crispier edges. Check with a toothpick from the center if too soft/wet.
- Cool for 15 minutes before slicing and serving. Refrigerate for upto 4 days, freeze for later. The brownie texture improves after refrigeration for a bit.
Video
Notes
Add spices such as cinnamon if you like , or fold in chopped walnuts in the batter for variation. *** You want to process or blend while the melted chocolate is still warm so that the batter is flowy and easy to pour out into the pan. Blending with a blender is also easier when ingredients are warm. Nutrition is 1 of 8 serves (2 pieces)
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Did you use sweetened nut butter or unsweetened? I used unsweetened almond butter. Mine were not sweet at all though I used all of the sweeteners in the recipe. The red lentil base is perfect! I couldn’t taste it at all! The other thing is that mine were not fydgy as promised. I used Bobs Red Mill gluten free flour mix for the flour. Any suggestions?
i think its the flour. rice flour (which is a big portion of the bobs mix), tends to absorb a lot more moisture and also dried out incredibly on baking. so that explains the non fudgyness. Rice flour also often needs more flavor and sweetness compared to regular flour. Use half almond flour and half bobs mix. Also add more sweet. Taste the batter before baking. i use sweetened nutbutter, although the sweetened nut butters are very mildly sweetened, so you would still need the added sweet with the rice flour.
I made these again and used pure almond flour, added more sweet to compensate for my unsweetened almond butter and inadvertently skipped the oil. They came out great! I will try again with coconut oil because I do like a little extra fat. I suggest editing the recipe to indicate what kind of nut butter you are using ( I.e. Raw, roasted, unsweetened, sweetened, …..etc.) because there are so many variations available.
The fudginess was exactly what I was looking for!!!—especially after refrigerating!
awesome! ill add that. and also a note to taste the batter befpre baking to adjust sweetness. Its mostly cooked ingredients, so you can as well eat some batter 🙂
Can I store it in the fridge? How much time can I store it?
upto 5 days in the fridge
I just made these with a few alterations: using lindt chocolate 70 , almondpaste and almondflour, no sugar just 3 tblsp maple syrup. I wanted to add flaxseed but forgot.
thank you for sharing, great recipes!
Can almond butter be used instead?
TIA! 🙂
yes
Holy moly, these are incredible! So fudgy and dense. I made them as directed, but didn’t have baking power. I subbed it for 1/8 tsp baking soda and 1/4 tsp white vinegar. Thanks for the great recipe! 😋
yay!
Could you use brown lentils for this? We get lots of them on WIC and I can’t get my kids to eat them.
they can be a bit too earthy. Try them with extra vanilla and chocolate chips (brown lentils take longer to cook, use cooked lentils).
These sound great! What do you mean by starch?
any starch will do like cornstarch, arrowroot starch, tapioca starch
Hi, planning to make this for my baby.. so can I switch the white sugar with coconut sugar to make it a tad bit healthier? Also, is there any other substitute for maple syrup since I have none on hand. Is honey a substitute? I know it’s not vegan..
Yes coconut sugar will work fine. I use raw unrefined sugar in my recipes when it says sugar. For the maple syrup you can use jaggery syrup or coconut sugar syrup. I havent used honey in a while so I am not sure of the behavior in baked goods in good enough amounts
Hey! Thanks for the suggestion! These are great alternatives. I can’t wait to try out the recipe now. Great recipes by the way, all of them!
Honey is not ok for babies. They don’t have the digestion for it and it can cause a serious reaction. Please don’t give your baby honey!
Thanks so much! I love these. I cooked the lentils in the Instant Pot (for 2 minutes with 1.2 cups of water) and they softened enough that they were easy to mash. No draining or food-processing necessary. Delicious.
awesome!
These look amazing! I’ve never thought of using lentils in brownies before – but I like the idea that they’re more mild in flavor than black bean brownies. 🙂