Happy Monday. Just kidding. Who actually likes Mondays?
Not me. Not ever.
To be honest, I kind of need a break. I’ve been working a ridiculous amount lately and I feel as though I need some down time. Since I work a full time job outside of this blog, I really only have the time to create recipes on the weekends. That translates into me working all the time. From Saturday morning to Sunday evening you can find me at Ambitious Kitchen HQ creating absurd messes that I never want to clean up.
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Okay I’ll stop complaining now; thanks for hearing me out. Whatever the case, chocolate is necessary today.
Chocolate with a dose of health.
Meet the Flourless Chocolate Chip Zucchini Oat Brownies.
So increds. So amazing. Words cannot describe this magic.
Ugh I always say that, don’t I?
Okay but really… can you believe that 1 brownie has ONLY 86 calories and 6g of sugar? YES, it’s true.
These are made with peanut butter, honey, applesauce, and zucchini, and guess what? The only thing you taste is chocolate and a slight chewy texture from the oats. I’m quite impressed with myself.
Oh, oh, oh! These are totally gluten free; and vegan if you swap maple syrup for honey and use vegan chocolate chips.
Gotta run! xoxo
More recipes to try:
One-Bowl Fudgy Pumpkin Paleo Brownies
Grain Free Raspberry Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Zucchini Brownies
Vegan & Gluten Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Brownies
Healthy Pumpkin Zucchini Chocolate Chip Bread
Ambitious Kitchen
Cookbook
125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
Flourless Chocolate Chip Zucchini Oat Brownies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup all natural unsalted peanut butter
- 1/4 cup honey or agave nectar
- 1/2 cup unsweetened natural applesauce
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 3/4 cup gluten free oats
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (vegan if desired), divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 8x11 baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
- Place oats in blender or food processor and process until finely ground. Don't worry, it doesn't need to be perfect but it should take a few minutes. Set aside.
- In a large bowl of electric mixer, cream together peanut butter, applesauce, honey and vanilla until smooth. Add in zucchini, cocoa powder, ground oats, baking soda, and salt; mix until well combined. Gently fold in 1/4 cup of chocolate chips.
- Pour batter into prepared baking pan and sprinkle remaining chocolate chips over the top. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until tooth pick inserted into middle comes out almost clean.
- Cool brownies completely on wire rack then cut into 20 squares. Enjoy!
They sound great. I love baking with zucchini (and avocado) – especially when chocolate is involved b/c it totally masks any veggie taste. I don’t mind but some people do. These look great and wow, those stats! Love the addition of PB too 🙂
Sweetie – oats are not gluten free!
Oh honey, you certainly CAN find gluten free oats, you just gotta look! 😁
Gluten free oats are. Have to check the label
Isn’t chocolate necessary every day? 🙂
Delicious vegan food, like these brownies, is one reason why the number of vegans has doubled in less than 3 years. Here are two uplifting videos that will help people understand just some of the implications of this lifestyle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKr4HZ7ukSE and http://www.veganvideo.org.
Mmmm…these sound wonderful! I bet the zucchini makes them super moist!
I’ll go for chocolate with a “dose of health” anytime. These sound wonderful!!
Hope that the new full-time job is going well. I’m amazed at all you do! 🙂
I want to devour those tonight. Pinning this shizzle. Can’t wait to tell you I made it!
http://www.bobsredmill.com/gluten-free-rolled-oats.html
Sweetie – You can purchase gluten free oats!
Love the sound of this! Looks lovely!
Just made these last night. My husband LOVED them, and the kids did before I told them what was in them. I think these are the only brownies I’ll be making from now on.
Hang in there… love reading your posts x
I found this recipe through Carrian’s pin. I saw them and had to make them immediately! So I did. And they’re awesome. I wanted to take pictures but a few minutes out of the oven and I had eaten half of them (in my defense, I only made half the recipe). Then it started raining which means I’m just about forced to finish the rest of them, right? Thanks for the amazing recipe! They absolutely do not taste healthified. 😀
So glad you liked, Erin!
Since these have oats in them I do not think you should call them gluten free. I have celiac disease, and if I were to eat these with the oats in them, I would have severe stomach problems.
Hi Amy — you can buy gluten free oats; I get mine from Trader Joe’s! I have indicated this in the recipe ingredients.
Dana made these and they tasted awesome!
ahh i know! i was impressed with that recipe! 😀 happy!
A bit different.. as far as i didn't have gluten free oats.. and i used normal chocolate chips.. but other than that.. pretty darn healthy!!
Hi there! Found you via Pinterest and wow, I am so impressed with your site! I’ve already pinned your avo/bean brownies (I’ve made brownies with avo, but not beans and yours is the best recipe I’ve seen!) and now these! Can’t wait to explore! (I can feel a pinning party coming on:)
Mary Frances @ http://www.thesweet-toothlife.blogspot.com
Rhonda Jewell-Kuskie man these were so yummy today! Brownies are my weakness……
So good! I can’t taste the zucchini at all! They are fudge-like and delicious. If I were being a piggy I’d put in more chocolate chips but I’m trying to be good so I stopped at 1/2 cup! You are on a roll, Monique! Between these and the fish tacos, we are eating well in our house this week!!
How amazing do these look?!? AND pretty darn healthy to boot! Pinning 🙂
Sorry, these are disgusting. needs more sugar. Not sweet at all. I feel like I was eating straight cocoa laced with peanut butter. The top got too hard and the insides were gooey. And not good brownie gooey but gross out gooey. And yes I did cook them longer but made the top even harder. I tried lowering the temp at the end so the top would not get as hard and had to cook them for like 15 mins longer, and they were still mush.
I made them after seeing your first post, but left out the chocolate chips and only used 1 cup of zucchini instead of 1 1/2 because that was all I had. Pop and I like them. I used agave to sweeten and the applesauce. We are used to less sweet things. (plus we topped it with squirty)
I will have to try these! I have made something similar before: http://thepomeroylife.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/how-to-fight-back-when-zucchinis-threaten-to-take-over-the-world/
But yours look way more chocolatey, which i am all for
Look at these! Don't they sound like a great way to use up extra zucchini?
Do you think the brownies would work if I left out the peanut butter and used mashed avocado instead of zucchini? They don’t have zucchini at the store here and I don’t have enough peanut butter at the moment haha.
Directed here from Hummussapien and wow- these brownies look AMAHZING!
Shashi @ http://runninsrilankan.com
These look amazing! Love that they’re vegan.
Glad to see someone made them and liked them.. I will give them a try.. Thanks 😉
Would regular old-fashioned oats work?
Regular old-fashioned oats are the same as rolled oats, so yes.
how much flour do the ground oats make? i already have oat flour, so i’d love to use it instead and be lazy 🙂
great question I would use about 1/2 cup oat flour. 🙂
These are great! Even the guys at work enjoyed them. I used the Better N’ Peanut Butter. If there are any WW folks out there, I made this batch into 12 brownies instead of 20 and they were 5 points each.
Frankly these brownies look like they would make any Monday better! Or any day of the week for that matter!
I made these the other day, my first attempt to make “healthy” brownies and… SUCCESS! Thanks for sharing your blog! 🙂
Awesome recipe Monique! I love it when dessert is healthy!
Can I just say I totally know how you feel on the whole non-stop working thing? I’ve been blogging for about 8 months now and I love it but it eats up all of my free time on the weekend. It’s seriously exhausting but so hard to give up on! Complain all you want, I’m here to wallow in it with you!! 🙂
Thanks! The whole pan was gone in less than 24 hours 🙂
thanks for taking the time to make the magic….these just came out of the oven!!! mmmmmm from canada!
These look great! I have an abundance of zucchini in the garden right now and am trying to figure out what to do with it all. I was just curious though, would almond butter work just as well as the pb? It’s a peanut free house right now.
Definitely!
These are probably the best brownies I’ve ever made.. healthy or unhealthy. I’ve made them twice and even the non healthy people in my family LOVED them. The first time I made them, I used gluten free instant oatmeal and Barney’s Almond Butter. The second time I made them, I used a rough type oatmeal (CONTAINS GLUTEN) and my homemade Almond Butter that I flavor with vanilla and sweeten with Truvia. Both times the brownies came out DELICIOUS. Thank you for this wonderful recipe!!!
Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I just made these, they are so yummy!!! I used organic almond butter instead of PB and coconut nectar instead of honey!!! The kids had no idea it was a healthy brownie, loved ’em! Thanks for the great recipe!!!
I was wondering about the almond butter instead! Good to know! My kids can’t have peanut butter in school!
These turned about amazingly well but I made a few changes:
1) I added a 1/4C of additional sugar as the batter wasn't very sweet.
2) I used homemade apple sauce (much less water than commercial).
3) I cooked them in muffin cups to make them easier to serve.
4) Sprinkled them with 'pearl sugar' to make them look nice.
EVERYONE (even the non vegans) loved these. Very gooey/dark chocolate tasting. Really a great keeper. Unlike other 'no-fat' desserts, which can haver horrible texture, this one really worked. Looking forward to trying it again to see if I just got lucky or it can be repeated…
Excellent Scott. I was just wondering what I was going to do with the Zucchini from my CSA this week!
I made these tonight and they were awesome! Thanks!
These sound amazing! Always looking for homemade treats for my kids that aren’t loaded with sugar! Plus veggies too, bonus!!
These were super yum!! My only issue is serving size…. 20?!?!? Really? Who gets 20 out of this size pan. In your picture you didn’t get 20 either. It would be better if the nutritional info reflected what people would normally cut 🙂
Hi Sarah! I did actually get 20 brownies in the pan if you look at the photos. If you’d like to calculate the brownies with a different serving size, feel free to! Thanks!
You could also replace the honey with coconut nectar or date syrup! 🙂
You could also replace the honey with coconut nectar or date syrup! 🙂
These were divine!! I am a huge fan of marrying zucchini and chocolate!! I have a favorite recipe I have been making for years- Spiced Belgian Chocolate Zucchini Bread which I might just replace with this recipe. This is a perfect fit for my recent gluten-free & low sugar diet!! I suppose I could always add the cloves and cinnamon to give it that spiced kick, as well!
Can’t wait to share these & really happy to have found your blog!!
Thanks again 🙂
Just made these, and I'm waiting for them to cool off so we can try them! They look and smell delicious!
Hi Monique, is there anything I can use to replace the applesauce? That’s not something I usually keep in the house. Thanks!
Try 1 mashed banana
I do not have an 8×11 pan. What size can I substitute? Thanks!
I’m going to be honest….I wasn’t quite sure about these. But you’re not usually wrong about things Monique, so I gave em a try. I can’t quite say they satisfy my need for a brownie….you know, those times you NEED a brownie. I don’t think they were quite sweet enough for that. But….for just a nice little don’t-feel-guilty-about-it dessert, I would eat these all day. I guess that removes the good-for-you part. But really, I was quite pleasantly surprised by these!
I'm not a vegan so I added an egg, which added lift to the brownie and made them soft and cake like. Added 1/2 honey instead of 1/4 cup. These were delish. Made this for friends and family, they were amazed these had no flour in them and had zucchini in them.
grandson allergic to peanuts, granddaughter = no dairy, their dad is gluten-free. Substitute for peanut butter & I’ll love you forever! nana5x
A friend of mine recently brought these to a potluck dinner and I just couldnt believe how wonderful they tasted! And even better – without sugar, white flour (i.e. gluten) or any dairy products!!! Now that I’m checking out your website I realize that I wanna try out every single recipe you’ve posted here. Thank you so much for sharing all those amazing recipes, pictures and thoughts! Since that above mentioned evening, you sure have several new fans here in beautiful Sweden! 🙂
These are baking in my oven as I type. I can't wait to try them!
I made three modifications: I ground up some puffed quinoa instead of using oats (I’m allergic), and I used almond butter instead of peanut butter (also allergic). I also used about half the amount of agave, and added some stevia. It worked really well.
What can I use instead of any nut butter? Allergic to pea- and tree nuts 🙁
Puree canned chickpeas in a food processor or blender. (hummus-like texture) As a bonus you get proteins! I would use the same quantity. Let me now how it turns out if you try it!
or black beans! 🙂
Hi I found this recipe on a FB page exactly the same but it had butter instead of peanut butter. I've made it and it's not setting in the middle. It said bake 25 mins-30 and i have had it in an extra 25 mins and it still hasn't set. Any ideas where I might have went wrong?
I tried to make these last night I found the exact same recipe somewhere and saved it . Only difference is butter instead of peanut butter. It didn’t set . Can you suggest where I might have gone wrong? I left it for an hour
i made these and they were DELICIOUS! I omitted the chocolate chips, added some chopped dates, and also added an egg as someone suggested, and they were moist and fluffy. The zucchini wasn’t obvious at ALL! I’m so happy 🙂 def a repeat!
These look amazing! I was thinking of making them for Passover… Do you think it could go without the oats? Or is it possible to use potato starch or something? Thanks!!
I don’t think so! Potato flour maybe? I’m not sure!
Made these exactly as recipe states and they are awesome. Made twice now and are my husbands favorite! Thanks so much!
These brownies are very tasty! I have made them with both dark chocolate and mini semi-sweet chocolate chips(non-vegan). I bake them in an 11 x 7 pan for 27 minutes and they come out fudgy and perfect. I love how low sugar these which contributes to their excellent dark chocolate taste and texture. 🙂
what do you think would best be substituted for the oats? (some coeliacs react to oats even when processed on gluten free machinery – I’m one of them)
Any ideas what to add in if you cant use peanut butter as I have an allergy to peanuts.
These are phenomenal! they’re also great frozen – who knew?
I'm making these for a 2nd time per my husband's request too! These are amazing 🙂
Well I have two minutes left of them baking and realized…I forgot to put the oats in. We’ll see what happens! They look good and smell good anyway.
excellent recipe. i used 3/4 cup oat bran and they came out great. took about 35 min in my oven.
Can anyone tell me what kind of zucchini you used? Green or yellow or does it not matter? Thanks
I used green! 🙂
Loved how easy this recipe was! Not hVing to make a trip to health food store for obscure ingredients is a major plus! Next time I think I’d add a tad more honey, they weren’t sweet enough for me and ended up throwing some icing on which made them a little more ‘guilt’ than I was hoping for;)
Those are magical indeed! Tried them this weekend, I just CAN’T stop eating them!
Really great texture, and taste. Thanks!
Awesome made with almond butter, whole wheat flour and raw cacao powder, baked for ~28 minutes in mini-muffin tin. Made about 25 good sized minis. This recipe is a keeper, but the raw cacao was too strong and required more honey, so I’ll make some adjustments next time, and there will be a next time!
Glad you hear that you are going to try them again. Yes, raw cacao is powerful!
This sounds amazing! I love your zucchini recipes monique. 1 question, does the water of the zucchini in this recipe need to be squeezed out? Would it be 1.5 cups after or before squeezing the water?
Thanks!
It’s before, and yes you should squeeze it of excess water.
Just made these, they are great. Super moist, a little fudgy, tender and flavorful.
I felt like I needed to say that I’ve been making this recipe for years and these are THE BEST brownies out there!!! Thank you so much for your minimal-ingredient, less-processed recipes! <3333
That’s amazing!! I’m so glad these are a go-to 🙂 Happy baking!
such a goodie!!
Absolutely delicious! I make these whenever I need a seriously chocolatey, fudgy brownie, and they never disappoint. I can never find applesauce in our grocery store so I use a large, ripe banana instead, and a bit less honey, but it turns out great. So tasty with fresh fruit, whipped cream, ice cream, or just by itself. Definitely a favourite 🙂
DO YOU DRAIN THE ZUCCHINI BEFORE ADDING IT OR WILL IT MAKE THE BROWNIES TOO DRY?
I enjoyed these as “healthy brownies,” but not something I would necessarily make again. I felt like all the flavors stood out independently and didn’t really blend together for some reason – the peanut butter, the honey, etc. But thank you for another low-calorie option! 🙂
Ok, I take it back. I took them to Bible study and everyone LOVED them and asked for the recipe! I need to learn to wait until the next day to rate recipes, as they often seem better the next day. And also, I think I’ve just been spoiled by all your delicious recipes and now I’m getting too picky haha,
Haha I’m so glad you ended up enjoying them!! Brownies can taste different after sitting/chilling so no worries 🙂 Thanks so much for your feedback!
Everything is so nicely described that really helped me. I am looking forward for more of such delicious recipes in future too.
Way too wet. Likely needed to squeeze excess moisture out of the zucchini before adding.
Try these zucchini brownies next – they’re a bit more updated!
Can you use almond butter instead of peanut butter?