Decadent, fudgy dark chocolate-filled bars made healthy! With ingredients like avocado, coconut flour, and antioxidant-rich cocoa, these bars are a perfect nourishing paleo dessert option.

A Grain-free Chocolate Dessert!

It’s no secret at this point that I am absolutely a chocoholic. In the chocolate-lover spectrum, I would be tipping the scales.

A day without chocolate isn’t one I want to live… even though I went almost 3 months without it at the height of my severe ulcerative colitis symptoms.

Can I Eat Chocolate with IBD?

The story behind those dark chocolate-less 3 months started with an unexpected autoimmune disease diagnosis. When medicine alone wasn’t working to relieve my ulcerative colitis symptoms (and because I didn’t want my colon removed), I was desperate enough to try anything.

The last sliver of hope from my perspective was a major lifestyle and diet change. Coming from a runner and carb lover, following the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and decreasing my mileage by over 1/2 lead to a couple of very difficult months.

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) does exactly what it sounds: it removes specific carbohydrate sources that are known to be inflammatory for many people with gut dysbiosis. Unfortunately, chocolate fell into that category.

However, the SCD is only meant to be followed strictly temporarily to “reset” the microbiome. Once my symptoms started to subside, I began slowly adding in a few minimally-processed foods. Think: modified paleo diet, if you need a reference.

So in short, yes! After my flare symptoms were gone, unsweetened, no milk/soy/sweetener-added cocoa products have been good to me. THANK GOODNESS.

Baking with Avocado

I know what you’re thinking… it’s like putting guac into brownies. Ew.

But I pinky promise that you can’t taste the avocado at all! If anything, it adds the same buttery, rich flavor that butter & oil has, but much more natural and unprocessed (obviously)!

Avocados are like nature’s butter. I love sneaking them into fun dessert recipes! Especially when they’re paired with the intense color and flavors of dark chocolate, you can’t even tell that this dessert is absolutely packed with healthy plant-based fats!

How to Make Paleo Fudge Bars

Step 1: Combine the coconut flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and monk fruit in a mixing bowl. Stir well. Add in the mashed avocado, coconut milk, coconut oil, and egg.

Step 2: Stir well, the batter will be thicker than brownie batter but softer than cookie dough.

Step 3: Press into a 9×9″ pan and sprinkle dark chocolate chips over the top, lightly pressing them into the batter.

Step 4: Bake and let them cool completely before slicing. Store in the refrigerator or freezer!

More of My Favorite Chocolate Recipes: