These double-chocolate ultra-fudgy Applesauce Brownies are made with no oil, no butter, and no refined flours! But the great news is – no veggies, strange ingredients, or beans either. These brownies are incredibly tasty – you won’t even miss all the butter and oil!
Try some of our other healthy baked goods like these Flourless Banana Muffins, this Healthy Ice Cream, or these Healthy Chocolate Cookies.
What To Expect From These Applesauce Brownies
These healthy Applesauce Brownies are ridiculously tasty and made with much–better-for-you ingredients than you’ll find in most brownie recipes. I mean, I will admit they are significantly less healthy with a big scoop of ice cream and drenched in hot fudge sauce (like pictured above), but all things in moderation, right? 🙂
I’ll chat more about the ingredients in these applesauce brownies below, but I will say here they are made with peanut butter, so they’re more of a peanut butter-chocolate brownie. For the best fudge-like, pure-chocolate (no peanut butter) brownie recipe, check out these Healthy Brownies. That recipe also includes an optional chocolate frosting, so if you’d like to frost these Applesauce Brownies, use the frosting recipe on that post for these brownies!
As far as texture goes, Applesauce Brownies are fairly fudgey but like more of a gooey cake-like brownie.
There are no black beans, no vegetables, and no strange ingredients that will have you searching the aisles of a health food store. So let’s discuss what is actually in these brownies!
Applesauce Brownie Ingredients
- Creamy peanut butter.Use smooth peanut butter for these muffins, not chunky. If using natural peanut butter, make sure it’s well mixed and not oily. Choose a peanut butter you enjoy on its own. We like dry-roasted and lightly salted ones.
- Honey.We add some honey for sweetness, but we also use brown sugar. Using too much honey can make the brownies too wet.
- Brown sugar.This recipe has less brown sugar than usual for brownies. You can adjust the amount of sugar; see the “quick tip” below.
- Vanilla extract. Vanilla adds a nice flavor to the brownies.
- Unsweetened applesauce. If you use sweetened applesauce, use less brown sugar. The recipe is based on unsweetened applesauce, which helps control how sweet the brownies are. Different brands of sweetened applesauce vary in sweetness, so unsweetened is best for consistency.
- Egg. These brownies need one large egg.
- Oat flour. More on this ingredient in the section below!
- Cocoa powder: Use natural cocoa powder, not a Dutch-process cocoa powder. I’ve tested these brownies with Dutched cocoa, and it does not work out well — the consistency and flavor are off!
- Baking soda, baking powder, salt. Here’s how to make sure your baking soda and powder are fresh.
- Dark chocolate chips:To make Applesauce Brownies healthier, we use dark chocolate. It has good fats and lots of antioxidants.
Quick Tip
Adjusting the brown sugar. If you’re not used to healthy sweets, you might want more sugar in these brownies. If you’re okay with less sweetness, you can use less sugar. We think they’re great with about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of packed brown sugar.
I mentioned that Applesauce Brownies don’t have refined white sugar. So instead of using white flour, or even whole wheat flour, we use oats. The oats are blended into powdery oat flour. No need to buy this from the store, since it literally takes seconds to make it yourself.
How To Make Oat “Flour”
- Place old-fashioned or quick oats in a food processor or small blender jar.
- Blend the oats until they turn into a fine powder, like flour (as shown in the photo above on the right).
- Stir the oats around to be sure that all the oats have been finely ground.
- Measure the oat flour for these muffins after it’s been turned to flour and not in the original whole-oat form.
Tips
- Put parchment paper in the pan with extra hanging off the sides. This makes it easy to lift out the brownies and cut them on a board.
- Check that everything is really gluten-free. Even though the brownie ingredients should be gluten-free, look at the labels to make sure they weren’t made in a place that uses gluten. This is very important for people with celiac disease who can’t have gluten at all.
- Put some dark chocolate chips on top. Before baking, I add a little more chocolate chips over the brownie mix. This way, every bite has a chocolate chip in it!
More Healthy Baked Goods
- Healthy Zucchini Muffins with Greek yogurt
- Healthy Caramel Sauce with almond butter
- Chocolate Energy Bites with protein powder
- Chewy Granola Bars with mini chocolate chips
- Healthy No-Bake Cookies with coconut
Applesauce Brownies
Equipment
- Baking pan 8 x 8-inch, see note 1
- Small blender or food processor
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup oat flour old-fashioned oats that have been blended
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1/4 cup brown sugar lightly packed, see note 2
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder not Dutch-process cocoa powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup dark chocolate chips divided, or semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉. Line an 8x8-inch baking pan with parchment paper..
- Pulse oats in a food processor or small blender until ground into a flour consistency. Measure 1/4 cup after blending.
- In a large bowl, mix peanut butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla, egg, and applesauce until smooth. Once smooth, stir in oat flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and 1/2 cup chocolate chips until combined.
- Transfer batter to the lined baking pan, smoothing it evenly. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup chocolate chips and gently press them in. Bake for 20–22 minutes or until lightly puffy. Check doneness by seeing if the batter pulls away from the edges slightly or a toothpick inserted in the center (not in a chip) comes out clean or with moist crumbs or clean.
- Remove and allow to cool in the pan on a cooling rack for about an hour before cutting and serving. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
So fudgey and delicious!!! no one even knew they were made with nut butter 🙂
Yay! Such a win! So glad you enjoyed these Applesauce Brownies! Thanks Jess! 🙂
Hiya,
Peanut butter – what type – regular like Jiff or
Skippy or real natural peanut butter with
out that other stuff?
Deb
I typically use Skippy!
Made these tonight for my family since we ran out of flour and was looking to make something sweet! These are soooo good!!!! All my kiddos age 11, 9, 4 and 2 loved them!! Will keep this in rotation! Love that they are healthier! Plan to double the batch tomorrow and try a 13×9 pan since it is 6 of us!! Thanks so much!!
So happy to hear this! Thanks so much Mercedes! 🙂
Do you think I could replace the sugar with a mashed overripe banana?
No I think they’d end up too wet!
These are amazing!! I am SUPER picky and loved them. Next time I’ll try a mixture of half traditional peanut butter and half natural. I bet I won’t be able to tell. I accidentally mixed all of the chocolate chips in rather than saving some for the top, but it turned out just fine. I’m off to find more oat flour recipes. Thank you!
Yay! I’m so glad you enjoyed! Thanks Amy! 🙂
Used chunky peanut butter. Came out extremely decadent and delicious!!! Thank you.
So glad these were a hit; thanks for the comment 🙂
I’ve only gotten so far as the batter, but man did it taste good!!!! Currently baking in the oven. I had a larger pan so increased some ingredient amounts. Also put in protein powder.
Great idea to add protein powder!