Dorothy Kern
Vegan Brownies are so rich and fudgy! These brownies are made with applesauce instead of eggs but you’d never guess – they are just as decadent as regular brownies.
BONUS: you only need one bowl to make them and you can also make them gluten-free.
I like to keep a few vegan dessert recipes up my sleeve because you never know when you might be making dessert for someone following a vegan diet. So, while I might not do vegan baking on a regular basis, I do have a few recipes I pull out when I need them. Case in point: vegan brownies. They’re rich, they’re fudgy, they’re SO GOOD. You’d never guess that they’re made with applesauce instead of eggs.
The first time I made this vegan brownie recipe was several years ago for a school cookie exchange I organized for the teachers. I wanted to make sure everyone would enjoy the exchange so made a batch of these fudgy brownies. Since then, they’ve been my go-to when I need a chocolatey vegan treat!
Table of Contents
What’s in Vegan Brownies?
They are made with a lot of the same ingredients as regular brownies with a few key exceptions.
Traditional brownies have a rich and fudgy texture which is created by the butter and eggs in the batter, which, of course, aren’t vegan ingredients. The good news is you can achieve that same brownie texture using applesauce and oil instead. And it really works!
So, instead of using eggs in brownies you can use applesauce – this is great for people who have egg allergies, too.
No-Egg Brownie Ingredients
- Vegetable oil
- Granulated sugar
- Vanilla
- Unsweetened cocoa
- Unsweetened applesauce
- Melted unsweetened baking chocolate
- Salt
- All-purpose flour
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
It’s easy to make these gluten-free, too! I like to use Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free 1:1 AP Flour (in the light-blue bag!).
One-Bowl and Three Steps
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line a 9×9” baking dish with foil and coat it with cooking spray.
Combine the oil and sugar in a large bowl. Add the vanilla, cocoa, applesauce, melted chocolate and salt and stir. Slowly add the flour and then fold in the chocolate chips.
Bake the brownies for 25 to 28 minutes – cool them in the pan before slicing.
I also like to dust the cooled brownies with some powdered sugar for a pretty presentation.
These Vegan Brownies have the Best Fudgy Texture!
In case you’re wondering – no, you can’t taste the applesauce in the brownies! All it does is magically give the brownies a fudgy texture.
They also have a rich chocolate flavor – a lot of recipes only have cocoa powder, but my recipe has melted chocolate, too, which really amps up the richness. The extra chocolate chips, don’t hurt either!
What I think I love best is that you’d never guess they are vegan. They taste just like regular brownies and that’s not just me – they always get rave reviews. Enjoy!
Other delicious brownie recipes:
Have you made this recipe?
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Vegan Brownies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 4 ounces unsweetened applesauce (about 1/2 cup)
- 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate , melted
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (Vegan ones, to keep it vegan)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 9×9” pan with foil and spray with cooking spray.
- Stir together oil and sugar. Stir in vanilla, cocoa, and applesauce. Add melted chocolate and salt, stir until smooth. Slowly stir in flour. Add chocolate chips.
- Pour into prepared pan and bake 25-28 minutes. Cool before cutting.
- Top with a sprinkling of powdered sugar for a pretty presentation!
Nutrition Information
Nutritional information not guaranteed to be accurate
You will never know these are egg free brownies! These are still rich and fudgy, but made with applesauce instead of egg – the perfect vegan dessert recipe.
All text and images © DOROTHY KERN for Crazy for Crust. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words, or link back to this post for the recipe. Disclaimer: Nutrition information shown is not guaranteed to be accurate.
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Published on: February 16, 2020
Made the brownies yesterday – the flavor is very chocolaty and rich but the batter was very thick and the brownies are really dense since the only liquids were 1/2 cup of oil, 1/2 cup of applesauce and 2 oz melted chocolate. I’ll try it again using a hand mixer instead of whisk to see if that helps.
It sounds so easy, thank you for sharing the recipe! Gotta try it very soon, sounds like a great choice for breakfast.
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I made these this morning and left out the chocolate and the choc chips. I only used 1 cup sugar (half raw and half caster) and use GF flour with 2 Tbs almond flour. Crunchy on top, chewy inside and super sweet these are great! Easy to make, and even easier to eat.
Hi! What’s caster sugar?
I just went to buy giradelli choc chips and was reading the ingredients. It actually does contain milk powder and is not vegan. I ooked it up and they used to be vegan, but they are not going away from that. Pls read this Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Baking Chips have long been a favorite “accidentally vegan” treat. But recently, the company quietly added whole milk powder to the ingredients, and the original dairy-free chocolate chips are disappearing from grocery store shelves.
These are pretty good! Even better than many of the normal recipes I’ve tried. Mine where a little bit too sweet and they lost their softness the next Dany. Si I am making them with half of the sugar. Let’s see ! Thankyou
These look delish! I’m going to try FYI, Ghiradelli recently changed their recipe (summer 2016) and now the chips are NOT vegan. I wrote them a sad little note….
Oh no! Thanks for letting me know.
Hi, just made the recipe – the batter seemed incredibly thick when I made it so had to add quite a bit of soya milk just to make it stirable! It was so thick, the mixture didn’t actually move during baking from how I spread it.. However because I’m English and had to use a converter to change from cups to grams, I think something possibly got lost in translation.. Do you know what the correct equivalent amounts may be?
Nom nom nom. OK so now i must make em’. It is seriously delicious looking!!!! To the kitchen 🙂
I recently have gone lactose free while nursing my daughter (she has a milk intolerance) and am looking for truly vegan dessert recipes. I just wanted to mention that milk is an ingredient in semi-sweet chocolate chips. It’s hidden in everything. 🙁
It wasn’t listed as an ingredient in the chocolate chips I used, or you can substitute the vegan baking chips they sell at most grocery stores these days. I just made M&M sugar cookies that have a dairy-free option (but you’d can use a dairy-free candy equivalent – like carob or vegan chips – instead of the M&Ms: https://www.crazyforcrust.com/2014/05/mm-sugar-cookies-dairy-free-option/
Hi, i just got them into the oven! but they’ve been there like for 30 min now, and they seem a little splashy, is it normal? im not used to bake, so, help? lol
They’re still wet looking? Did you make any substitutions? And your oven temp is correct (do you have an oven thermometer?)