These Flourless Chocolate Cookies have a secret ingredient that no one will guess! This is the easiest cookie recipe and it’s so healthy and full of nutrients–it’s a must try. Save This Recipe! Enter your email and I'll send it straight to your inbox. Plus you'll get new recipes from me every week! By submitting this form, you consent to receive emails from Happy Healthy Mama.
The Secret Ingredient in these Flourless Chocolate Cookies
Okay, okay, there’s a few more things I should tell you. You would never guess it, but these cookies are made without the usual suspects that make cookies delicious. No butter. No refined sugar. White flour? Nope. OH, wait. There’s no flour at all.
No flour? That’s right. These are flourless chocolate cookies. So what holds them together? Black beans. WAIT! Don’t stop reading. You have to trust me. You don’t taste the beans at all. Really.
Black beans are sweetened with dates and together they create a great, fudge-like texture. Some almonds also help hold them together and peanut butter improves the texture even more and adds the classic chocolate-peanut butter flavor combination I adore.
Then there’s the salt. The salt brings them to a whole new level. In. Sane. Two words.
Tim tasted these Flourless Chocolate Cookies and thought they were regular, not-my-usual-healthified cookies. If nothing else, that should convince you to try them. My husband is a cookie snob.
How to Make Flourless Chocolate Cookies (HEALTHY!)
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil a cookie sheet and set it aside.
- Put all ingredients except chocolate chips and salt into your food processor and process until very smooth. Your dough will be thick. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Use a rounded tablespoon to scoop out the dough and then form it into a ball and flatten it to a cookie shape and place it on the cookie sheet. Sprinkle each cookie with a pinch of salt.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes.
Recipe Notes
- Drain and rinse your black beans very well. This will minimize any bean flavor in your cookies.
- You can use a food processor or professional blender to break down the black beans, almonds, and dates for this recipe. I prefer Vitamix if you use a blender.
- Using stevia-sweetened chocolate chips will reduce the overall sugar content of this recipe. (The nutritional information is for regular chocolate chips.)
If you try this recipe, please give it a star rating below. It’s so helpful for other readers to see that a recipe is tried and true! Let’s stay in touch–follow along on Instagram or Facebook.
If you love healthy cookie recipes, I have a whole bunch of good ones! Try these Vegan and Keto Peanut Butter Cookies, these Soft Batch Loaded Oatmeal Cookies, or these 3-ingredient Banana Cookies!
Salted Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 30 cookies 1x
Description
These are not your everyday cookies, but you’d never guess how healthy they are. Made without flour, refined sugar, or butter, these vegan cookies have a secret ingredient: black beans! Rich and fudge-like, the salted tops compliment the flavors perfectly. A healthy way to indulge!
Ingredients
- 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed well
- 3/4 cup pitted dates
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/4 cup almonds
- 3/4 cup natural peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
- coarse salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil a cookie sheet and set it aside.
- Put all ingredients except chocolate chips and salt into your food processor and process until very smooth. Your dough will be thick. Stir in the chocolate chips. Use a rounded tablespoon to scoop out the dough and then form it into a ball and flatten it to a cookie shape and place it on the cookie sheet. {You can definitely just plop it down, but know they won’t flatten or spread at all and will keep that same plopped-down shape.} Sprinkle each cookie with a pinch of salt. Bake in the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes. Enjoy!
Notes
- Drain and rinse your black beans very well. This will minimize any bean flavor in your cookies.
- You can use a food processor or professional blender to break down the black beans, almonds, and dates for this recipe. I prefer Vitamix if you use a blender.
- Using stevia-sweetened chocolate chips will reduce the overall sugar content of this recipe. (The nutritional information is for regular chocolate chips.)
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Category: cookies
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 100
- Sugar: 4.5g
- Sodium: 69mg
- Fat: 5g
- Carbohydrates: 12.1g
- Protein: 2.9g
Please note that links to products are affiliate links. This post was first published in March 2014. A video was added March 2020.
Love it, it’s definitely important to know how to do this properly and efficiently, clients LOVE these.
I had to add a little splash of unsweetened almond milk to get these to blend in my food processor but they still worked out just fine. Thought I would share for those who have trouble getting them to blend.
They tasted great….baked or unbaked! Thank you for sharing!
I have a fairly new and big Cuisinart food processor, and it couldn’t even mix this batter. After a loooong time, I finally kind of got them mixed. They were a little crunchy still, but they were super yummy! I think next time I will process the nuts first, then add the dates, and then the rest of the ingredients. Thanks for a great recipe!
You’re welcome! Sorry it was rough on your processor.
My cuisinart did alright . I was wondering if you have a nutritional analysis for these – carb count in particular? I did notice that the blog description leading up to the recipe claims no refined sugar but the dates I bought had sugar and the chocolate chips have sugar so there is some refined sugar.
I’ve been working on getting my older recipes updated with nutritional stats. I’ll work on this one next and let you know when I have it. Dates shouldn’t have any added sugar. They have natural sugar, but none added. I use chocolate chips that use evaporated cane juice to sweeten them. This is sugar, but not refined sugar. Sugar is sugar in the end, but unrefined sugar retains more nutrients.
Hi Maryea,
I absolutely love these cookies, would you happen to know how many calories/cookie?
Love your site too, good job!
Made these tonight and they were UH-AMAZING!! I had to stop myself from eating the whole batch. You would never guess the ingredient list. The salt does take it to a whole new level…the perfect topping. Thanks for coming up with such yummy, healthy, ready recipes! Oh on a side note I noticed on a few of your recipes you use coconut butter and say to melt it… Do you melt in the microwave or on the stove? I just bought some to try out.
I usually melt in the microwave because I’m a little lazy. 🙂
These were delicious. Thanks! (And even better — my husband baked them.)
That’s perfect! 🙂 Thanks for letting me know you tried these.
These cookies are delish but they gave my Vitamix a run for its money!
You were not joking when you said the batter was thick. Thanks for a yummy treat, just what we were craving in this house.
You are welcome! I haven’t tried this in the blender, but I imagine it would be rough on it! Glad it worked out though. 🙂
I’m trying to eat less flour so thanks! also… anything with salt and chocolate in is yum x
Cookies and brownies in one recipe? Count me in! Thank you for sharing this. My kids are always ready to eat cookies :).
And you can feel great about serving these to your kids! Win. 🙂
Would sunbutter work ? My son is allergic to peanuts 🙁
It would definitely work. They will taste different than with the peanut butter, obviously, but if you like the flavor of sun butter I think it’d be great. 🙂
Oh, I am making these this week-end, they look so good, all my favorite ingredients too.
Great!
I’ve eaten more than my fair share of black bean brownies, but I’ve never tried a black bean cookie! I’m a fan of the salty/sweet combo, so these look like the perfect place to start.
If you like black bean brownies, you’ll love these. The salt is such a lovely addition.
OMG….I’m a huge fan of black beans in brownies so you know I’m down for beanies in cookies! Can’t wait to try these!
Oh, I know you will love these!
Yum! These sound amazing. I have been trying to cut back on sweets a little bit with summer coming up, and a healthy “chocolate” cookie recipe is exactly what I need. If I don’t have my chocolate fix, I tend to raid the baking cabinet, which is never a good thing… Excited to try these!
These are perfect for cutting back on sweets. 🙂
You read my mind with these cookies – I’m not kidding! After a week of garbanzo beans cookies I got to thinking about a chocolate cookie made with black beans and even bought black beans to give it a try… I’ve got all these ingredients on hand, I wouldn’t have thought about adding salt though – genius!
Too funny! I actually thought of these thanks to chickpea cookies too. I was out of chickpeas and used white beans instead. It worked fine so it got me thinking about trying other beans in cookies. Black beans and chocolate seemed perfect!