We counted every dessert on this site. 34 of the 58 are sweetened with fruit alone, usually dates or a ripe banana. Another 9 use fruit plus a little dark chocolate, which brings its own sugar with it. The remaining 15 have sugar or maple syrup in them outright.
That split is the useful way to sort them, so it is how this page is organized. The fruit-only ones come first. Anything with sugar in it, including the ones where the sugar arrives inside the chocolate, is gathered at the end and labeled, rather than mixed in and left for you to find out in the ingredient list.
Every recipe here is ours, and none of them uses a sugar substitute.
Sweetened With Fruit Alone
Dates do most of the work in this section. Blended with water they turn into a caramel thick enough to hold a base together, which is why so many of these need no baking and no flour.
1. Raw Vegan Brownie Bites
Walnuts, dates and cocoa, and that is the whole list. Three ingredients, 10 minutes, 8 bites.
Blend the walnuts before the dates go in. Do it the other way round and the dates coat the blades and nothing grinds.
2. No Bake Coconut Energy Balls (4-ingredients)
The fastest thing on this page at 5 minutes, and it makes 7.
Cashews, coconut, cranberries and dates. It holds together because the dried fruit is sticky, so if the mixture crumbles the fix is another date, not more liquid.
3. 3 Ingredients Coconut Cookies
Three ingredients and 20 minutes for 6 cookies.
These bake rather than chill, which gives you an actual crisp edge. Coconut brings enough fat that nothing needs oil added.
4. 4 Ingredient No Bake Brownie Hearts
Four ingredients pressed into a tray and cut into 15 hearts. 10 minutes.
Made for Valentine’s but the shape is the only thing seasonal about them.
5. Soft Avocado Truffles Vegan
Avocado is the whole texture here, and you cannot taste it under the cocoa.
15 minutes for 10 truffles, and they firm up in the fridge rather than the freezer.
6. Strawberry Vegan Truffles Recipe
18 truffles in 10 minutes, built on freeze-dried strawberry, so the color comes from fruit and not from beetroot or dye.
Keep these cold. There is no setting agent, so warm hands undo them.
7. Sweet Potato Vegan Truffles
Baked sweet potato mashed with almond flour and dates. 10 minutes once the potato is cooked, and it makes 10.
The sweet potato has to be properly dry or the mixture will not hold. Bake it rather than boil it.
8. Easy Pumpkin Truffles
Five ingredients, 12 truffles, 10 minutes.
Steamed pumpkin and coconut flour. The coconut flour is doing structural work here and cannot be swapped for almond flour, which absorbs far less.
9. Carrot Cake Balls
Carrot cake without the cake. Walnuts, sunflower seeds, dates, a grated carrot and cinnamon.
25 bites in 10 minutes, which is the best yield-to-effort ratio on this page.
10. Chocolate Chia Seed Pudding
Four ingredients and no sweetener beyond one ripe banana.
35 minutes, most of it the chia sitting in the fridge doing the setting. Blend the banana properly or you get lumps.
11. Raw Chocolate Avocado Bowls
Cashews and dates for the base, avocado and banana for the top. Serves 6.
25 minutes, and the only cooking is none. It is rich enough that the portions are smaller than they look.
12. Quick Brown Rice Pudding
Cooked brown rice, plant milk, a mashed banana and two dates. 10 minutes for one bowl.
This is what to make with leftover rice. It also works cold the next morning.
13. Easy Oatmeal Walnut Cookies
Walnuts, dates, oats and coconut. 12 cookies in 17 minutes.
The dates are the only sweetener and also the binder, which is why there is no egg and no oil in them.
14. Easy and Quick Peanut Butter Cookies
Six cookies from almond flour, peanut butter and dates.
Half a tablespoon of water is the only liquid. Add more and they spread rather than hold.
15. Oatmeal Peanut Butter Vegan Cookies
Oats, dates and peanut butter with a little plant milk. Six cookies, 17 minutes.
Soft rather than crisp. If you want them firmer, leave them on the tray to cool completely before moving them.
16. Easy Raw Homemade Strawberry Jam
Three ingredients and no cooking at all: frozen strawberries, dates, lemon juice.
Makes 2 cups in 10 minutes. It will not keep like a boiled jam, so it lives in the fridge and gets eaten within the week.
17. Sugar-free Vegan Apple Pie
Apples over an oat, walnut and whole wheat base, sweetened by a cup and a half of dates.
55 minutes and it cuts into 12. The base is pressed rather than rolled, so no pastry technique is involved.
18. Healthy Oats Apple Cake
Shredded apple and walnuts in an oat and whole wheat batter, with dates doing the sweetening.
50 minutes, 12 pieces. The lift comes from baking soda meeting cider vinegar, not from eggs.
19. Easy Vegan Oatmeal Cake With Strawberries
Oats, banana and dates with a layer of frozen strawberries. 10 slices.
75 minutes, the longest bake here. It is closer to a baked oatmeal than a cake, which is the point.
20. Easy Oat Pumpkin Cookies
The batch cook of the list: 35 to 40 cookies from cooked pumpkin, walnuts, oats and dates.
40 minutes. Orange juice is the only liquid, and it is what stops them tasting flat.
These Have Sugar in Them Somewhere
Everything below has sugar or maple syrup on top of whatever fruit is in it, and in the last two it arrives inside the chocolate rather than the bowl. They are still whole-food recipes and still oil-free. The sweetener is just worth knowing about in advance.
21. Chocolate & Walnut Cake
Half a cup of brown sugar, whole wheat flour and a lot of walnuts. 10 to 12 slices in 50 minutes.
Coconut milk carries the fat, so there is no butter and no oil.
22. Chocolate Raspberry Cake
Soaked dates do most of the sweetening and maple syrup finishes it. Serves 10.
Two hours, most of it cooling. Cut it warm and it falls apart.
23. Easy Vegan Peachy Sorbet
Frozen peaches and a frozen banana blended to a sorbet, with maple syrup and lemon.
10 minutes and it serves 2. The banana is what makes it scoopable rather than icy.
24. Fruity Blueberry Cake
Blueberries in a whole wheat batter, sweetened with orange juice and 4 tablespoons of brown sugar.
Two hours and it cuts into 10 to 12.
25. Healthy Banana Avocado Vegan Chocolate Cake
Banana and avocado in a chocolate batter, with 5 tablespoons of brown sugar.
65 minutes, 12 servings. The avocado replaces butter and you cannot taste it.
26. Healthy Vegan Cheesecake with Blueberries
An almond and date base under a cashew filling, set with chia and finished with blueberries.
30 minutes of work, serves 10, and the setting happens in the freezer rather than the oven.
27. Vegan Chocolate Raspberry Mousse
Coconut milk and dark chocolate with a tablespoon of maple syrup, over raspberries.
20 minutes and it serves 4. Use full-fat coconut milk or it will not hold air.
28. Whole Wheat Cinnamon Cookies
Whole wheat, walnuts, carob and dates, with a liquid sweetener on top of that. Makes about 40.
25 minutes. Carob rather than cocoa gives them a mellower, less bitter edge.
29. Healthy Mini Vegan Snickers
A date, peanut butter, ground peanuts and melted dark chocolate. Makes 20 in 15 minutes.
The date does the caramel and the nougat at once. The only added sugar is whatever is in the chocolate you buy, so the bar you choose decides it.
30. Easy No Bake Vegan Brownie
Walnuts and dates pressed into a tray with cocoa, then chilled. 8 brownies in 20 minutes.
Dense and fudgy rather than cakey, with no flour and no oven. The 2 ounces of chocolate chips are the only place sugar gets in.
Where to Start
If you have never made a dessert without sugar, start with the no-bake ones. Dates blended with a little water behave like caramel, and once you have felt a mixture come together in the food processor the rest of this page stops looking unlikely.
The 3-ingredient brownie bites take 10 minutes and need nothing you cannot buy in a supermarket. If they work, the truffles and the cookies all use the same trick.
