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These Chickpea Blondies are going to be your new favorite dessert! If you weren’t the one making them, you’d never guess they were made with beans. Each bar contains only 144 calories and 6 grams of protein.
Not only are these healthy blondies low-calorie and packed with protein and fiber, but each one also contains 10% of your daily iron needs. If you’re iron-deficient, these healthy dessert bars will help add more iron to your diet in a fun and delicious way.
They have a gooey center, crisp edges, and are full of rich peanut butter flavor. These blondies are truly the perfect dessert, full of balanced nutrition.
If you like healthy peanut butter dessert recipes, you will love my Low-Carb Peanut Butter Cookies and Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bars!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- You Can’t Taste the Beans: Between the peanut butter, maple syrup, and vanilla extract in this recipe, you can’t even taste the chickpeas. I promise there is no beanie flavor!
- Packed with Protein and Iron: Not only are chickpeas a great source of protein, but they also contain a lot of iron. That makes this recipe great for those who may be a little iron-deficient.
- Gluten-Free and Vegan Dessert: This healthy blondie recipe doesn’t use any flour, so it’s naturally gluten-free. It also doesn’t use any eggs or butter, so it’s also completely vegan.
Table of Contents
Ingredients
- Chickpeas: Drain and rinse a can of chickpeas (also called garbanzo beans) to blend into the batter.
- Peanut Butter: Creamy peanut butter adds some extra protein and flavor, and helps cover the flavor of the chickpeas. Slightly heat the peanut butter so it’s a little runny and easier to blend.
- Vanilla Extract: A bit of vanilla extract enriches the flavor of the blondies and adds a touch of sweetness.
- Maple Syrup: Using maple syrup as a natural sweetener keeps this dessert moist without adding a lot of extra calories. You could use honey, but then the recipe would no longer be vegan.
- Chocolate Chips: Use dairy-free chocolate chips to keep the recipe dairy-free and vegan.
See the recipe card below for exact ingredient amounts, nutritional information, and detailed instructions.
Variations & Dietary Modifications
- Make Them Nut-Free: If you have a nut allergy, you can use sunflower butter instead of peanut butter. Just keep in mind that the baking soda and baking powder will turn the sunflower butter green. Green blondies could be fun, especially for kids!
- Use a Different Bean: You can use any white bean in this recipe, including cannellini beans or Great Northern beans. Chickpeas are my favorite, though.
- Add Cocoa Powder: Turn these blondies into brownies by adding cocoa powder to the batter, like in my double chocolate chickpea brownies.
How to Make Chickpea Blondies
These healthy chickpea blondies are the perfect lower-calorie, high-protein, and iron-rich dessert. They come together quickly and taste delicious! Preheat your oven to 350°F and prepare a baking pan with nonstick cooking spray and line it with parchment paper.
Step 1: Blend Ingredients. Add the chickpeas, peanut butter, vanilla extract, maple syrup, baking soda, baking powder, and salt to a blender or food processor. Blend the ingredients until they are creamy and smooth.
Step 2: Fold in Chocolate Chips. Use a spatula to fold in the chocolate chips by hand.
Step 3: Add Batter to the Pan. Spread the batter into a smooth, even layer in your prepared baking pan. Bake at 350°F for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick can be inserted and removed cleanly from the center of the pan.
Step 4: Slice and Top the Blondies. Remove the blondies from the oven and let them cool in the pan for 30 minutes. Then remove the blondies and slice them into 16 equally sized bars. Drizzle melted chocolate and peanut butter over the tops of the bars.
Expert Tips
- Drain and Dry Chickpeas: Keep the chickpeas from adding excess moisture to the batter by draining them, rinsing them, and patting them completely dry before blending them.
- Use a Hot Knife for Cutting: Run your knife under hot water and wipe it clean after each cut to keep the cuts clean and easy.
- Make Them Extra Fudgey: Ensure your blondies have a rich, fudge-like consistency by refrigerating them for an hour after they cool.
- Storing: Store leftover blondies in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a week. You can also slice them and wrap them individually in plastic wrap and freeze them for a month. Thaw frozen blondies in the refrigerator for 24 hours before eating them.
Serving Suggestions
This chickpea blondies recipe is the perfect dessert or afternoon snack! They are low-calorie, vegan, full of protein, and provide 10% of your daily iron. These are great for dessert parties, packing in your lunch, or enjoying as a little treat. No one will even know they are made with beans!
- These make a great dessert to enjoy after a delicious dinner, like my Greek chicken bowls with zucchini noodles.
- Make an apple pie smoothie to go with your blondies for an extra boost of protein and some added fiber.
- If you’re looking for more iron-rich recipes, try making my butternut squash hash as well.
Chickpea Blondies Recipe FAQs
No, I do not recommend using garbanzo flour for this recipe because it has a much stronger bean-like flavor than the beans themselves.
If your blondies are mushy, then they probably aren’t done cooking. Add a few additional minutes to the baking time until you can insert and remove a toothpick cleanly from the center.
If your blondies are still a bit gritty, then you need to blend the batter for a longer amount of time. To avoid, I suggest testing the batter before baking. That way if it still feels grainy you can blend for more time.
More Delicious Healthy Dessert Recipes
Desserts
High Protein Cheesecake
Gluten Free
Healthy Strawberry Shortcake
Desserts
Greek Yogurt Cake
Gluten Free
Raspberry Crumb Bars
If you tried this chickpea blondies recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how you go in the 📝 comments below.
Chickpea Blondies
Ingredients
- 15 ounce Garbanzo Beans, from a can, rinsed & drained well*
- ½ cup Peanut butter , or any nut butter
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- ⅓ cup Maple Syrup
- ¼ teaspoon Baking Soda
- ½ teaspoon Baking Powder
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- ¼ cup Mini Chocolate Chips, or dairy free chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven 350° F. Prepare an 8×8 baking pan by spraying it with nonstick cooking spray.
- To a blender or food processor, add all ingredients except chocolate chips. Process on high until creamy and smooth. Fold chocolate chips into the batter by hand.
- Bake at 350° F 20-25 minutes until a toothpick can be inserted clean. Cool in the pan 30 minutes prior to slicing into 16 bars.
- Optionally drizzle the tops of he bars with melted chocolate and extra nut butter.
Notes
- Drain, rinse, and pat the chickpeas dry to avoid adding excess moisture to the chickpea blondie batter.
- Run a knife under hot water and wipe it clean after every cut to make the cuts clean.
- Place cooled blondies in the refrigerator for an hour to give them a more fudgy texture.
- If you replace peanut butter with sunflower butter, be aware it will turn the blondies green due to the chemical reaction with baking soda.
- Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator up to one week.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hiya, just wondering, is it 15 ounces of beans when drained or just the can and water in general? Tanks!
You purchase a 15 ounce can of chickpeas then drain the chickpeas to use for the recipe.
Love the flavor and the ease of this recipe. I’ve made it twice now and I can’t get my “brownies” to set up. They still are gooey, which obviously hasn’t detered me enough from making them but didn’t know if you had any pointers?
Fantastic to hear you love the brownies! I’m not sure what you mean by not setting up. They will not rise much because they are made with chickpeas so if you want them thicker, then you could consider using a smaller pan to get a thicker brownie or add a bit of oat flour.
My favorite dessert at the moment. It’s so healthy and it tastes delicious. Sometimes after the recipe is done I cut a slice and I add some extra peanut butter and chocolate and then I put it in the microwave for a minute. It’s amazing.
That sounds amazing! Thanks for letting me know how much you love it. It’s one of my favorite desserts on the blog.
Hi Megan! I really wanted to try this out but can I use regular white sugar instead of maple syrup and wil the texture be the same? Also isn’t peanut butter high in fats so when we eat this, wouldn’t this be a high fat food…? Just curious!! Thanks!
Hi Ashley! I haven’t tried regular white sugar. I don’t bake with it because it’s really bad for you so I can’t say how it would turn out. As for the peanut butter, this is a healthy fat and should be incorporated in the diet. I don’t know why, but many people still believe high fat foods are bad but they are not.
Thank you for the response! I think I’ll try with regular sugar. as for fat, it’s just that I already get my fats from meat that I feel like adding more healthy fats is not good.. 😀
Meat is not a healthy omega-3 rich fat like nuts and nut butters. Your cells need these kind of fats to stay healthy and they are good for your heart. Sugar is actually shown to increase your risk for disease development and cause weight gain so this is something I highly recommend against. Eating more fat is shown to reduce weight and improve health status.
I made these for my kids (aged 2 and 5) and they LOVED them! Like begging for more! I had to make a few substitutions based on my pantry (white beans instead of chickpeas, vanilla instead of almond extract and cashew butter) and they were still so delicious. These will definitely be on my baking rotation Thanks!
I also have hashimotos, desiccated thyroid has been my saving grace. Is that what you take?
No. I talk about what I take in this post: https://skinnyfitalicious.com/living-hashimotos-disease/
I’m allergic to most Nuts, could I just use butter?
I haven’t tried, but I doubt butter would work and the taste would be weird too. Sunflower butter would work, but they will turn green from the baking soda. Otherwise coconut butter could work, but not sure of the taste. Report back and let me know!
Regarding your iron deficiency- have you been tested for parietal cell antibodies?
Yes.
Hi! Could I substitute the maple syrup for applesauce?
It will probably be too wet and not sticky enough if you do. You might want to sub 1/4 of the maple syrup with applesauce and see how it does. I’ve never tried it.
Hello do you think you could substitute maple syrup for honey?
Thanks!
I haven’t tried, but probably you could.