Healthier Chocolate Hazelnut Zucchini Brownies
These brownies are insanely good. They’re fudgy, rich with chocolate, and taste like Nutella, but healthier and vegan. You’d never know they had zucchini in them!
When I say that these brownies are fudgy, I really mean it! This is all due to the magical ingredient: zucchini.
I have had a few leftover zucchini from my CSA share chilling in my fridge for a little while now, and I knew I had to do something with them before they went bad. I thought of grilling them as a side or adding them to some pasta salad, but none of those ideas really excited me.
I then turned towards my sweet tooth, and thought I’d make a bread out of the zucchini and add tons of cinnamon and nuts to make it the warm hug we all deserve right now. I went and took inventory of what I had in my pantry and saw two huge containers of hazelnuts and about 5 bars of chocolate.
It was then that I decided to turn my veggies into the most delicious hazelnut chocolate brownies to exist.
Look how gooey!
I also thought it’d be beneficial to try and make these brownies a bit healthier than their traditional form. Instead of oil or butter, I used homemade hazelnut butter. Instead of regular sugar, I used coconut sugar. Instead of eggs, I used ground flax seed, and instead of regular flour I used whole wheat.
You could substitute the whole wheat flour with a like gluten free 1 to 1 alternative as well as buckwheat, but I am unsure how other gluten free substitutes like coconut flour, oat flour or almond flour would work here.
The batter itself will be quite dry and weird to work with until the end, so don’t be discouraged when you’re making it! The zucchini will impart a lot of moisture because it doesn’t get drained or squeezed, so the rest of the batter is quite dry.
When I tasted them, I genuinely felt that I had outdone myself with this recipe, but to really see if they’re as good as I thought, I fed it to some zucchini haters without telling them it was an ingredient. They all had no idea, and loved them.
These brownies are the perfect excuse to use up any excess zucchini you have!
HEALTHIER CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT ZUCCHINI BROWNIES
(makes 12-16 brownies)
Ingredients
1 cup + 1/3 cup raw hazelnuts, divided (see notes for important info)*
2 tbsp ground flax + 6 tbsp water
1 ¾ cups finely grated zucchini (about 2 small-medium zucchini), DO NOT drain**
1 cup coconut sugar
¼ cup unsweetened non dairy milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup cacao powder
¾ cup whole wheat flour, spelt flour, or gluten free AP flour
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp espresso powder
1 cup chopped dark or semi-sweet chocolate (I used a mixture of both)
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400F and line a baking sheet with oven safe parchment.
Place all of the 1 1/3 cups of hazelnuts on the tray and place into the oven to dry roast for 8-10 minutes, tossing halfway. Make sure to check them a few minutes before 10 minutes to ensure they aren’t burning. Mine took 9 minutes.
Remove the hazelnuts from the oven and let cool until you’re able to touch them. Aggressively move the hazelnuts around in the pan to try to remove the skins, then place the de-skinned hazelnuts into another bowl. Try and remove as much skin as you can to ensure a smoother, less bitter nut butter.
Place 1 cup of the hazelnuts into a food processor and blend until completely smooth and fairly fluid, about 5-7 minutes. This should yield ½ cup of hazelnut butter. If it comes up slightly short, fill the ½ cup in with another natural nut butter of choice to ensure you have enough for the recipe.
Add 2 tbsp ground flax to a small bowl with 6 tbsp of water. Stir and let sit for about 10 minutes until it gels together to become egg-like.
Finely grate the zucchini and place 1 ¾ cup of it into a small bowl. Let it sit while everything else comes together.
Reduce the oven heat to 350F and line an 8x8 inch pan with parchment paper.
Chop the remaining 1/3 cup hazelnuts and set to the side.
Pour the ½ cup hazelnut butter into a large mixing bowl, then mix in coconut sugar and vanilla.
Once ready, add in the flax mixture and stir to combine. It will be very thick and goopy.
To the flax, sugar and vanilla mixture, add in the cacao powder, flour, baking soda, salt and espresso powder. Fold gently until mostly combined. This will be a very dry mixture, and it is perfectly okay if you can’t mix everything together completely. You do not need to over mix at all, just do your best to get it somewhat combined.
Fold in the chopped 1/3 cup hazelnuts and the chopped chocolate.
Add in the zucchini along with any water it emitted. Let the batter sit for about 5 minutes to draw out any excess moisture.
Mix in the non dairy milk to thin out the mixture. It should still be a thick batter, but you should be able to spread it easily. If your mixture is still too thick and dry, add in a few extra tablespoons of non dairy milk.
Spread the brownie batter into the prepared baking pan (I topped mine with a few extra chocolate chunks for a melted, gooey presentation) and bake for around 30-35 minutes. I baked mine for 32 minutes. When a toothpick is inserted, it shouldn’t come out completely clean. There should be some wet looking crumbs on it. Try not to over bake, and since they’re vegan, it’s okay if you under bake them slightly.
Let the brownies cool (I topped mine with flaked salt and hazelnuts), then cut into 12 or 16 squares. Store room temp for a day, then place leftovers in the fridge for about a week!
Notes
* For these brownies, we make our own hazelnut butter to replace any traditional oil or fat and boost up the flavor! We blend 1 cup of the toasted nuts into a food processor to yield ½ cup nut butter for the recipe. The extra 1/3 cup of toasted hazelnuts is chopped and added into the brownie for texture. It is very easy to do, however if you don’t want to go through the process of making the nut butter you can use a different store bought natural nut butter (like peanut butter or almond butter) but it must be on the thin side. Thick nut butter will not work here because the thinness is needed to help hydrate the batter and mix things together! I promise it is worth making the hazelnut butter though. To make it more worth your while you can definitely blend up more nuts to yield extra nut butter to save and store!
** We don’t want to drain the zucchini in this instance because the moisture from the zucchini will help make these brownies surprisingly fudgy and rich! Just grate the zucchini and set it aside in a small bowl.
