A year ago while still at my previous job, I drove home from work with intense stress-induced chocolate cravings at least one night each week. Those persistent desires demanded more than a kid-sized Starbucks hot chocolate or a small square of Hershey’s Special Dark. They required a thick slice of decadent chocolate cake, usually supplied by the Safeway bakery a quarter-mile away from our house.
Once inside, I sped straight to the back of the store, bypassing the front of their cake display filled with cupcakes and cheesecakes to scour the back. I skipped past their square two-layer pieces; those tasted too milky and had slightly runny frosting. Instead, I scrutinized every single triangular slice of their tall six-layer dark chocolate cake, always selecting the biggest one practically bursting out of the seams of its plastic package.
I slowly savored two layers each night, nibbling at mouse-sized bites to make my chocolate therapy last as long as possible. By the time I swallowed the final morsel on the third day, I felt the stress melt away like the fudgy frosting on my tongue, and it motivated me to tackle another round of papers at work.
But then…
Then came the night that Safeway sold the last slice before I could claim it. Another customer walked out with my consolation cake, and I arrived home almost in tears. I had been depending on eating it all day! At the distraught look on my face, my guy asked what was wrong, and after I sniffled out a sad answer, he slipped his car keys into his pocket while I snuggled into a fuzzy blanket on the couch to watch reruns of “Top Chef.”
Right as the episode ended 45 minutes later, he pulled open the front door. Without telling me, he had driven to the opposite side of town to search the other Safeway’s cake selection, and after finding no six-layer slices, he then bravely stopped by the newly opened Whole Foods downtown. He jockeyed his way through the indecisive college kids wandering the store, patiently standing in the bakery line to order two gourmet chocolate cupcakes.
After offering him a few bites of each, I finished both cupcakes that night. Two chocolate cupcakes = two layers of chocolate cake, right?
Once I left that job to blog full-time, fewer days demand a stress-relief slice of six-layer chocolate cake. On the rare occasion my chocolate cravings spiral out of control, I usually bake a pan of my favorite fudgy chocolate brownies instead. And yet… That’s almost just as dangerous. With no self-control around chocolate, I’m always tempted to eat all 16 by myself, especially the four fudgiest ones in the center!
Because those brownies also require lots of cooling time, I decided to create a quicker recipe—preferably ready in under 10 minutes—with only one serving, making it impossible for me to overeat. And after a weekend of experimenting and rounds of testing, I finally perfected the dessert.
This Healthy Single-Serving Microwave Brownie packs a huge chocolate punch, full of incredible fudginess and irresistible decadence. Its smooth texture simply melted in my mouth, completely satisfying my dark chocolate cravings. Despite its deeply rich flavor, it’s still a low-fat and low-calorie treat!
You only need 5 ingredients (plus water) to make this easy dessert, and I guarantee you store most of them in your pantry right now! Cocoa powder, whole wheat flour, yogurt, agave, and vanilla. Containing only these few wholesome healthy ingredients, this healthy brownie is clean-eating friendly and completely guilt-free.
Most single-serving microwave mug cake or mug brownie recipes call for at least a tablespoon of butter and an egg yolk. (That’s around 160 calories and 16 grams of fat alone, not including any other ingredients.) My recipe requires neither, but it’s still just as rich and fudgy because I added a lot more liquid ingredients than dry. More liquid ingredients = moister and fudgier brownies.
Just like my healthy classic fudgy cocoa brownies, this brownie solely depends on cocoa powder for its decadent chocolate flavor. Other recipes require melting chocolate bars or chips, but not this one! That demands too much time for a quick brownie fix, and it also creates another dish to wash—no thank you! But because I added more cocoa powder than flour in this healthy treat, the rich chocolate flavor really shines.
Similar to my other brownie recipes, you’ll mix the dry ingredients in one bowl, the wet ingredients in another, and combine them together before pouring into a ramekin. I do not advise mixing everything in the ramekin. Because this recipe contains very little fat, you’ll need to lightly mist the ramekin with nonstick cooking spray before adding in the batter to prevent the brownie from sticking.
To create extra fudgy brownies, I always bake them low and slow in the oven, so I applied a similar technique to the microwave. Cook the brownie batter at 40% power (low) for 2 minutes 15 seconds (slow-ish) to ensure it stays dense and moist. Do not microwave it on HIGH like with other mug recipes! The edges will overcook while the center stays raw.
If the center still looks slightly underdone after microwaving, that’s okay! It will continue to cook through as it cools, resulting in a perfectly fudgy brownie. (And even if it doesn’t, it’s still safe because it has no eggs, so you can’t get salmonella!)
Look at that gorgeous fudginess! After only 5 minutes of measuring, 2+ minutes of cooking, and 3 minutes of cooling, you can savor a decadent Healthy Single-Serving Microwave Brownie too. That’s just 10 minutes to make a sinfully rich, secretly skinny dessert!
Ready to make your own? And when you do, remember to snap a picture and share it on Instagram using #amyshealthybaking and tagging @amyshealthybaking IN the photo itself! (That guarantees I’ll see your picture! 🙂 ) I’d love to see your healthy single-serving brownie!
Healthy Single-Serving Microwave Brownie
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp (10g) unsweetened cocoa powder (measured like this)
- 1 ½ tbsp (11g) whole wheat flour or gluten free* flour (measured like this)
- 2 tbsp (30mL) water
- 1 tbsp (15g) plain nonfat Greek yogurt
- 2 tsp agave
- ⅛ tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Lightly coat a 1-cup ramekin with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the cocoa and flour. In a separate bowl, stir together the water, yogurt, agave, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients into the wet, stirring just until incorporated.
- Pour the batter into the prepared ramekin, gently shaking back and forth until the top is smooth. Microwave at 40% POWER for 2 minutes and 15 seconds (2:15). Let the brownie sit for at least 3 minutes before eating.
Notes
View Nutrition Information + Weight Watchers Points
You may also like Amy’s other recipes…
♡ Healthy Single Serving Chocolate Mug Cake
♡ Healthy Single Serving Chocolate Chip Mug Cake
♡ Healthy Single Serving Snickerdoodle Mug Cake
♡ Healthy Single Serving Peanut Butter Mug Cake
♡ The Ultimate Healthy Flourless Chocolate Cake
♡ The Ultimate Healthy Chocolate Cupcakes
♡ Healthy One-Bowl Fudgy Chocolate Chip Brownies
♡ …and the rest of Amy’s healthy mug cake recipes and healthy brownie recipes!
Hi Amy
My oven’s conked out so I was googling microwave recipes and saw this! As I’m diabetic I don’t do agave or honey – what I tend to use are bananas to sweeten muffins, cakes etc. do you think this would work here? Thanks!
I’m honored that you’d like to try my recipe, Annie! I’m a little hesitant to say yes, mostly because substituting mashed banana for the agave or honey in this recipe would likely result in the sweetness level of scones or muffins, rather than regular brownies, which would mean your brownie would taste similar to 85-90% dark chocolate (definitely on the not-very-sweet side!). If you don’t mind that dark of chocolate, then it might be okay! You’d probably need to use a tiny bit more, just because mashed banana is thicker in consistency than agave and honey, in order to fully incorporate the dry ingredients.
Otherwise, do you have a preferred no-calorie sweetener? We may be able to modify this recipe to use that instead — and that might be easier than the mashed banana too! 🙂
Thank you, Amy! I tried the brownie with half a very very ripe mashed banana and for me it was fine – although obviously more bitter- as I do eat 90% dark chocolate! For some odd reason, however, my husband passed on it..! 😝 Will definitely put more banana as you suggested next time.
I’m so glad you liked this brownie, Annie! My current favorite chocolate is 95%, which my mom lovingly refers to as “dirt” (she prefers 72%!). I’m guessing she would pass on the extra dark chocolaty brownies you and I enjoy, just like your husband! 😉
This recipe creates such an amazing brownie! (though all your recipes are great). I was just wondering how to make the recipe a bit less dark-chocolatey? Though this recipe is perfect for me, by even after tweaking the recipe for my little sister and adding a few scoops of mini chocolate chips, it was still a too dark for her, and it took took a lot longer to make than 10ish minutes! (although that was probably because of the tweaking and sibling bickering 😅.) My sister’s definitely a milk chocolate girl. I was trying to figure it out, but I wasn’t sure if I should keep the total number of grams the same or the tablespoon measurements (I’m only a young middle schooler. Also, yes, I do have adult supervision when I use the oven or microwave!) I also wanted to say for other people trying this recipe, don’t get discouraged if it turns out gummy or bitter, there are so many different variables when you bake, especially for something a bit finicky like microwaves. (don’t take my advice that seriously though). We had to put down the power and bake ours for a bit longer than the recipe called for because I’m pretty sure our microwave is stronger than yours after getting a bit of the same gummy texture from 2 of your mug cakes. Sorry for this long comment, but I also wanted to thank you for replying so kindly in all of your recipes! (I’ve been binge-reading your blog lately). I love the aesthetic of it and all your recipes! I’ve baked your Triple C’s (Chocolate Chip Cookies) a dozen times (and eaten half of the batch myself during the quarantine.) Thank you (&sry again). Jesus loves you!
Hi Coco Im the same I asked many time how to swap out some of the cocoa and never had an answer I think now the a lot of the recipes have a lot of cocoa to keep the calories down but way to rich for me and my friends who have tried them but trying to figure out how to swap out at least 1/2 the cocoa also agree Ive now found out using 70% power make a lot better microwave mug cake etc dont get me wrong love the recipes here just to much cocoa for me as well.Do love to see you young ones baking good on you.
I really appreciate your interest in this recipe of mine as well, Debra! I’ve actually replied to the comments you’ve left in the past asking about reducing the cocoa powder in my other recipes (truffles, bundt cake, brownies, cookies, etc!). It’s strange that you never received the answers that I shared! I wonder if your email inbox has some sort of a filter that puts my replies in your spam folder or automatically deletes them instead? So odd!
Regardless, for this recipe, if you’d like it to be more mild with less of a dark chocolate flavor, you can easily replace some of the cocoa powder with additional flour (just like I said to do for your queries on my other recipes! 🙂 ). Here, I’d recommend 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder and 2 ½ tablespoons of flour. For an even sweeter taste, closer to a milk chocolate flavor, you can also replace the water with additional agave.
I’d love to hear what you think of this brownie if you end up making it!
I just burned my tongue.. but it was worth it! This is so delicious!
Oh my goodness!! If you think a burned tongue was worth it, that’s the BEST kind of compliment there is! 😉 Thank you for taking the time to let me know — it truly means a lot, Sophie! (And if you ever make it again, hopefully you don’t burn your tongue with your next brownie!!)