I try to be the healthiest I can be, but I still find myself with cravings and wanting to indulge once in a while. Luckily, I’ve created this craving-satisfying dessert hummus to pair with an assortment of fruit to keep my chocolate fix and my sugar levels in check! It's filled with protein from chickpeas and it gets its chocolaty sweet flavor from Enjoy Life chocolate chips and pure maple syrup.
A couple of months back I noticed that dessert hummus made a huge entrance into the health scene. Some of my friends, who work for massive food corporations, were developing it, bloggers were blogging about it, and everyone and their mothers were trying to recreate it. I’m one of those people! Can you blame me?
The concept is pretty brilliant. Take a balanced savory snack and add some sweetness to it! The only issue? A lot of the store bought and blogger recipes include ingredients like coconut oil, white sugar, and some other ingredients I can’t pronounce, let alone understand what they are. No thank you.
Instead of missing out, I decided to make a healthier version and it turned out great! You won't find a drop of oil in this chocolate dessert hummus, so dig in!
WHY I AVOID COCONUT OIL
COCONUT OIL ISN'T AS GOOD AS YOU THINK
Coconut oil has been touted as a health food over the past several years. As far as I'm concerned, all oil is unhealthy. It's essentially 100% fat that's been stripped of all of the original food's nutrients. For example, olive oil is made from olives. Olives are a good source of copper, iron and fiber. They have antioxidants and can help decrease blood pressure and have anti-inflammatory nutrients. But here's the thing, when you process olives into oil, you lose all of those nutritional benefits and end up with pure fat. Coconut oil is even worse.
Coconut oil is also 100% fat, and unlike olive and other vegetable oils, which are unsaturated fats, coconut oil is saturated.
Saturated fats have been proven to raise cholesterol. High cholesterol is known to increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. Foods that contain saturated fats are all animal products and coconut and palm oil. If I can avoid foods with saturated fats, you better believe that I will.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to completely forgo all oil, including unsaturated olive oil. Why you ask? It turns out that oil may impair endothelial function and have adverse effects on cardiovascular health. Being an avid runner and certified personal trainer, as well as having a Master's degree in health psychology, I'm always concerned with heart function, so I decided to give it up rather than take any risks.
It's been really easy to do overall, but it definitely forces me to be creative once in a while. For example, when I found myself craving dessert hummus and looked at a container of store bought chocolate hummus, I was shocked by the amount of fat and calories. Then I looked online and saw a bunch of oil-laden recipes, which weren't an option, so I knew that I needed to make my own! Enter our incredible double chocolate brownie batter hummus.
This creamy sweet dip is so full of chocolate and is perfect with tart green apples, sweet and juicy strawberries or salty pretzel sticks. It's also filling, so a little goes a long way. I ate a few bites of it and I was perfectly satisfied. This would make a great dessert for a party because one batch can feed several people.
Looking for other oil-free dessert recipes? Check out our amazing chocolate raspberry pudding parfait or our cherry chocolate chip nice-cream !
Make our delicious chocolate dessert hummus and let us know what you think. Don't forget to take a picture and tag us @veganosity on Instagram so we can see your gorgeous creation.
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Oil-Free Dark Chocolate Brownie Batter Hummus
Ingredients
- 15 oz chickpeas
- 2 tbsp pure maple syrup
- 1/4 cup vegan dark chocolate chips melted (we use Enjoy Life brand)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 dash sea salt
- 1/4 cup vegan dark chocolate chips
Instructions
- Drain and rinse the chickpeas and place in a food processor or high-powered blender along with the maple syrup, melted chocolate chips, vanilla and sea salt. Blend until smooth and creamy, approximately 2 to 3 minutes.
- Put in a bowl and stir in the remaining chocolate chips
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