Learn how to make a healthy vegan chocolate cheesecake with chocolate chips and tofu but without crust. One serving of this cake has only 10 grams of sugar, all from whole food sources! So, it’s a perfect healthy treat for all the chocolate lovers.
All you need to do is throw all the ingredients into food processor, process them into batter, bake the cheesecake in a cake tin, and finally let cool. As simple as that!
I love this chocolate cheesecake recipe because:
- It’s extremely easy to make.
- Requires well-known ingredients. I
- s made of healthy whole food components.
- Makes a delicious chocolaty treat.
When it comes to labelling this cheesecake, this is how it would go:
- Plant-based and vegan
- Gluten-free
- Low glycemic
- Candida diet friendly
- Peanut-free
- Can be made nut-free
- Grain-free
- Flourless
- Crustless
Table of contents
How to Make a Healthy Vegan Chocolate Cheesecake
The Ingredients
Needless to say, this chocolate cheesecake is made of healthy plant-based non-refined ingredients. Hence, we won’t use ingredients like melted butter, refined flour, white sugar, heavy cream, sour cream, whipping cream, or eggs. Instead, we’ll opt for truly healthy plant-based alternatives.
Tofu
First, what gives this chocolate cheesecake its body, is firm or extra firm tofu. Extra-firm tofu has less water than firm tofu, which you notice in the difference in texture. The culinary possibilities of firm and extra-firm are almost the same, but extra-firm tofu doesn’t absorb marinades as well. On the other hand, extra-firm is easier to pan-fry, stir-fry or deep-fry. Read more on different types of tofu here.
Nut Butter and Coconut Milk
Now, it’s my belief that a chocolate cheesecake needs to have some good fats for heartiness. For this cake, I opted for almond butter and 18% coconut milk. Instead of almond butter, also peanut and cashew butter will work well. In case you’re allergic to nuts, feel free to use sunflower seed butter or tahini.
Chocolate Flavours
Evidently, a chocolate cheesecake calls for chocolaty ingredients. In this case, we’ll add some cocoa powder and dark chocolate chips.
Now, I don’t recommend wasting your money on the more expensive cacao powder (which is raw) on this cake as you’ll bake it anyway. As a matter of fact, I always opt for cocoa powder when making baked treats and save cacao powder for raw bars, cakes, and bliss balls.
To make it clear, cacao powder is made from fermented beans that have not been roasted. Instead, they are processed at low temperatures and then milled into a powder. The result is a bitter powder with high nutritional content. Cocoa powder on the other hand is made from beans that are both fermented and roasted, and then processed at a much higher temperature. The result is a less bitter, slightly darker powder that has lost some of its nutritional value. In case you don’t have dark chocolate chips at hand, use chopped dark chocolate instead. Furthermore, feel free to adjust the quantity to your liking or discard at all if you’re looking for a lower fat option.
Plant Milk
Next, we need to add a liquid to ease the processing of the batter. You can use any plant milk you prefer i.e., oat milk, soy milk, almond milk etc.
Date Syrup
For sweetening my chocolate cheesecake, I used date syrup, which is dates blended with water. Hence, date syrup is a whole food sweetener. It can be thicker or runnier depending on how much water is added to the dates.
Now, the amount you use to sweeten your chocolate cheesecake depends on how sweet you like the cake to be. So, feel free to adjust the quantity according to your taste buds. In case you need to keep the glycemic load low, feel free to substitute date paste with other sweeteners like erythritol or xylitol.
Psyllium Husks
As you might know, tofu is not known for its binding qualities. Therefore, we need to add something that will hold the cake together and enables to cut beautiful pieces. Psyllium husks have excellent binding features.
Psyllium is a form of fibre made from the husks of the Plantago ovata plant’s seeds. It sometimes goes by the name ispaghula. It is sold as whole husks or ground up into powder.
In this recipe, I used whole psyllium husks. In case you only have powder, use one tablespoon instead of two. Finally, let’s not forget about the flavour enhancer, Himalayan salt.
The Equipment
To make this chocolate cheesecake you’ll need a food processor, kitchen scale or measuring cups/spoons, a spoon, a small cake tin, and some parchment paper.
The Process
It’s very easy to make this vegan chocolate cheesecake. In fact, you don’t need to worry about melting chocolate in a water bath or anything like that.
You start by throwing all the ingredients, except chocolate chips, into your food processor and process until you have a smooth chocolaty batter.
Next, stir in the chocolate chips and pour everything into a small 11 cm (4 inch) cake tin. I suggest lining the bottom of the tin with parchment paper and rub the sides with a tiny amount of coconut or avocado oil. And now it’s down to baking our chocolate cheesecake at 175°C (350°F) for 55 minutes. When it’s done baking, remove the cake from the oven and let cool completely before slicing.
How to Serve This Chocolate Cheesecake
Finally, we are ready to serve this delicious chocolate cheesecake! I recommend slicing the cake into 8 pieces and serve with either homemade applesauce, plant-based ice-cream, vanilla yogurt, chocolate frosting, or caramel frosting.
How to Store
Given that you have some slices left over, cover the cake tin with a lid, wax wrap or plastic and keep in the fridge for up to 6 days. Alternatively, if you want to free up the cake tin or don’t have space for it in the fridge, transfer the cake into a container with lid.
In case you’re more of a visual learner, enjoy the below tutorial video on my vegan chocolate cheesecake!
Download my Guide to Low Glycemic Plant-Based Diet!
What are glycemic index and glycemic load and why those matter.
The list of low, medium and high glycemic foods.
Easy tips on staying on a low glycemic diet.
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How to Make a Healthy Vegan Chocolate Cheesecake [Video]
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
- Diet: Vegan
Description
Learn how to make a healthy vegan chocolate cheesecake with chocolate chips and tofu but without crust. All you need to do is throw all the ingredients into food processor, process them into batter, bake the cheesecake in a cake tin, and finally let cool. As simple as that!
Ingredients
- 500g (17.6oz, 2 cups cubed) firm tofu
- ¼ cup (60g, 2.1oz) 18% coconut milk
- ¼ cup + 1 tbsp. (80g, 2.8oz) additive-free nut butter
- 5 tbsps. (25g, 0.9oz) unsweetened cocoa powder
- ¼ tsp. Himalayan salt
- 2 tbsps. psyllium husks or 1 tbsp. psyllium husk powder
- 1 cup (243g, 8.6oz) unsweetened plant milk
- 5 tbsps. date syrup or other sweetener of choice
- ¼ cup (60g, 2.1oz) dark chocolate chips/buttons (chopped cacao paste for Plantricious version)
Instructions
- Simply add all the ingredients (except chocolate chips) into your food processor and process until you have a smooth batter.
- Next, stir in dark chocolate chips.
- Then, pour everything into a small 11 cm (4 inch) cake tin. I suggest lining the bottom of the tin with parchment paper and rub the sides with a tiny amount of coconut or avocado oil.
- Finally, bake at 175°C (350°F) for 55 minutes. When it’s done baking, remove the cake from the oven and let cool completely before slicing.
Notes
Nutritional info per serving (Plantricious version): 268.6 kcal, 11.9g carbohydrates, 8.5g sugars, 18.4g fats, 5.6g saturated fat, 13.2g protein, 5.2g fibre, and 94mg sodium.
In my opinion, the best nut butters that you can use in this recipe are peanut butter, almond butter, and cashew butter. In case you’re allergic to nuts, sunflower seed butter and tahini will do as well.
You can use any plant milk you prefer i.e., oat milk, soy milk, almond milk etc.
In case you need to keep the chocolate cheesecake’s glycemic load low, feel free to substitute date syrup with other sweeteners like erythritol or xylitol.
Substitute carob powder for cocoa if you’re intolerant to the latter.
Instead of dark chocolate chips you can also use chopped dark chocolate. Furthermore, feel free to adjust the quantity to your liking or discard at all if you’re looking for a lower fat option.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 55 minutes
- Category: Desserts
- Method: Oven
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/8 of the recipe
- Calories: 246 kcal
- Sugar: 10.3g
- Sodium: 94mg
- Fat: 15.6g
- Saturated Fat: 3.9g
- Carbohydrates: 13g
- Fiber: 4.5g
- Protein: 12.2g
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