5 decadent (mostly chocolate!) dessert recipes that are secretly healthy

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Valentine’s Day is approaching, which means all of the diet and healthy eating resolutions get derailed by sugary treats, right? Not necessarily. Katie Higgins, of the popular blog Chocolate Covered Katie, is hosting Grateful’s new series What the Fudge, where you can watch her whip up some of her favorite delicious and easy-to-make healthy dessert recipes.

“I don’t want my desserts to be good for a healthy dessert. I want them to be good, period,” Higgins says.

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Her secret? She swaps out ingredients like processed sugar, butter and dairy for healthier alternatives. Her surprising ingredients — including beans, avocado and sweet potatoes — may sound like they don’t belong in desserts, but they are delicious.

The Grateful series features Katie making eight of her favorite recipes — and we have rounded up below a few other reader favorites from her site. Read on!

Healthier chocolate brownies

To satisfy the Valentine’s Day chocolate craving, Higgins says her Black bean brownies will hit the spot.

“A few years ago, I published a recipe for Black bean brownies, believing that most people would think it was crazy. But the recipe has gone on to become my blog’s no. 1 reader favorite.”

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These brownies don’t have have flour or eggs, so the beans provide the texture that is needed to create this chocolatey and delicious dessert. However, the beans can’t be tasted in the finished product.

“I really love using beans in recipes,” Higgins says, citing them as a must-have pantry item, especially for vegans.

For a different secretly healthy brownie option that doesn’t have beans, check out her delicious recipe for Sweet potato brownies.

ALSO TRY: The Best Hand Mixers of 2019


A healthy chocolate cake for vegan Valentines

Valentine’s Day is all about chocolate, which is why Higgins recommends baking this heavenly, yet healthy, Vegan chocolate cake.

“One of my go-to indulgent recipes is the Vegan chocolate cake,” she says. “You can turn it into a one, two or three-layer cake and change up the frosting and toppings to make different flavors.”

To fancy it up a bit for the holiday, Higgins suggests a fruity layer. “For Valentine’s Day, I might add homemade chocolate frosting and raspberry jam in between each layer, before finishing it off with fresh berries and coconut whipped cream,” she says.

Check out the recipe for her Chocolate avocado frosting for a secretly healthy frosting option that is delicious and creamy.

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ALSO TRY: Delicious and easy vegan and dairy-free whipped cream


Delicious keto dessert recipes

For those who made the resolution this year to lose weight and get healthier with the keto diet, Higgins has created these delicious dessert recipes that will help you curb your cravings without derailing the diet.

“Hands down, the Keto ice cream recipe is the most popular keto-friendly dessert on the blog. You can even scoop it between two Keto cookies for a low-carb ice cream sandwich,” Higgins says.

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The keto ice cream is creamy and delicious, with coconut milk as a substitute for regular milk — and it only contains four ingredients so it is easy to whip together. The ice cream can be made in an ice cream maker, or it can be frozen in ice cube trays and then blended in a food processor or blender.

The chocolate chip keto cookies don’t have any white sugar, and instead they make use of keto-approved xylitol to give them their sweetness while keeping their low-glycemic status.

Another option would be to top Higgins’ Keto brownies with a scoop of keto ice cream for a delicious dessert that only feels like a splurge.

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Chocolate mug cake

This recipe is ideal for those who are craving chocolate but don’t want the fuss of making an entire chocolate cake. This recipe is perfect for one — or for kids who all want their own personal mug cake.

“The One-minute chocolate mug cake is super easy to make and uses just a few basic pantry staple ingredients, so many people will already have the ingredients on-hand,” Higgins says.

This recipe is vegan and gluten-free, and it tastes simply delicious.

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Shhhhh … these chocolate fudge balls are healthy

Valentine’s Day is the perfect excuse for indulging a little, and these Chocolate fudge balls are full of wholesome ingredients that make them figure-friendly all year long.

Unlike most fudge recipes that are full of sugar and heavy cream, Higgins uses black beans to give this dessert that rich and fudgy flavor. She also cuts back on the processed sugar, using maple syrup to sweeten them — and the result is melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness.

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Want more from Chocolate Covered Katie?

Check out Grateful.co’s new video series, aptly named What the Fudge. Watch Katie whip up her delicious desserts, including Chocolate banana bread, Healthy butterfingers, Crazy ingredient chocolate cake, as well as her famous Cookie dough dip. Find out how she came up with some of her healthy food swaps — using ingredients like black beans, avocados or even chickpeas in place of flour, oil and dairy.

Along with her tricks and tips for baking healthy desserts, Katie provides insight into why she started her blog and the inspiration behind her recipes. She reveals that she has always had a weakness for desserts, and wasn’t impressed with the healthy options that were available at the grocery store, so she started making her own and documenting them in her blog…and the rest is history!

Whether you are vegan, gluten-free, keto or just looking for healthier options, let Katie inspire you with desserts so good you will be saying, “What the fudge?!”

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