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The healthier fudgy brownies of your dreams! No refined sugar, butter or oil, plus this recipe doesn’t call for any out of the ordinary ingredients. These are seriously fudgy and estimated to be 174 calories a slice!

Five healthier fudgy brownies surrounded by chocolate on a white plate.

I want to introduce you to these healthier FUDGY brownies!

I’ve been working like a mad woman in my kitchen for a week perfecting this recipe. There were a few guidelines I had in mind..

1. create a healthier brownie
2. use normal ingredients
3. it can’t be cakey because I could just eat healthier cake instead, I wanted something fudgy & chewy.

Three healthy fudgy brownies surrounded by small chocolate pieces on a white serving plate.

Healthy brownies that use normal ingredients

So my starting point for guideline #2 – use normal ingredients to make healthier brownies – was that I didn’t want to have to go out and buy anything that I didn’t already have in my pantry.

Because chances are if I don’t have it in my pantry, you won’t either, and I don’t want to create a healthier brownie recipe were you have to go buy all these special ingredients you won’t use regularly.

So that took a few ingredients off the table – no coconut flour or other nut flours, no coconut sugar, no alternate sugar products like truvia or stevia. You get the idea.

The only out of the box ingredient in this recipe might be coconut oil, and I’m guessing that 50% of you have it in your pantry, and 50% of you don’t.

Five homemade fudgy brownies on a baking sheet.

Healthier brownies ingredients

Coconut oil: a healthy fat
Dark chocolate: used to give the brownies that deep rich, chocolate flavor (you can even use a darker chocolate or one without added sugar)
All purpose flour: a very accessible flour that everyone has
Cocoa powder: adds deep cocoa flavor
Salt: a pinch of salt helps with flavor
Eggs: used as a leavener and binder
Honey: used as a sweetener

I wanted these healthier fudgy brownies to be accessible to everyone with normal ingredients!

How to make healthy brownies

Melt the coconut oil and dark chocolate together
Meanwhile, mix together the flour, cocoa powder and salt
In a second bowl, combine the eggs, honey and coconut oil/chocolate mixture
Add in the flour, and stir to combine

Now let’s talk about the word “healthier”. These are still brownies, meaning they have calories. When comparing these brownies to our super fudgy brownie recipe – these healthier brownies have 174 calories per brownie whereas the super fudgy brownies have 437 calories per brownie (both recipes calculated for cutting the pan of brownies into 12). So these are healthier than your traditional brownie recipe!

One healthier fudgy brownie with small chocolate and a silver fork on a white plate.

Next topic, these are fudgy. If you like your brownies more cakey, this might not be the recipe for you. My husband Ryan prefers his brownies to be more traditional – he wants them perfectly chewy, fudgy and cakey all at the same time, but he would still (and did) happily eat these ones.

Because these brownies are rich & fudgy, one is enough, at least for me! And that way I don’t end up eating 2 or 3.

When they first come out of the oven, they won’t have the same stability they’ll have after they sit for a few hours. You’ll notice that the longer they sit, the fudgier in texture they are.

How to freeze skinny brownies

Allow the brownies to cool completely, cut into slices. Wrap 3-4 slices together in plastic wrap then in aluminum foil. To thaw, place in the fridge overnight.

More healthier desserts

Five homemade healthier fudgy brownies on a white serving plate.

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