25+ Raw Vegan Dessert Recipes and Raw Baking Tips
These 25 raw vegan gluten-free desserts are super easy healthy vegan dessert recipes to fix your sweet tooth!
Learn how easy and nourishing you can bake with raw flour and plant-based ingredients to create the best vegan no-bake cookies, raw cheesecakes, and raw brownies.
What are raw vegan desserts?
Raw vegan desserts are no-bake dessert recipes that don’t use any animal product. It means they are dairy-free, egg-free, and, most of the time, gluten-free too. Also, raw dessert recipes don’t require an oven or high temperature to hold their shapes. Usually, food is considered raw when made at temperatures that don’t exceed 120ºF (48ºC).
Raw flours
Raw flour is one of the most controversial topics when it comes to raw vegan desserts. I wrote an entire article about which flours are safe to be eaten raw, and I highly recommend reading it if you have any concerns.
The most common raw flours and dry ingredients used in raw baking are nut and seed flours. Safe raw flours to eat include:
- Almond flour
- Coconut flour
- Flaxseed meal
- Raw cacao powder or raw cocoa powder
How to make raw vegan desserts
You probably wonder how to make desserts like cheesecake, brownies, or cookies without heat and an oven!
The trick is to use plant-based ingredients that are safe when eaten raw and naturally give shape to food at room temperature. Below I am sharing the 3 main ingredient categories you need to start raw vegan baking at home.
Are raw vegan desserts healthy?
Eating raw food and raw desserts is always more nourishing because the ingredients are not subject to high temperature. Therefore, they keep all their important nutrients and vitamins.
Also, no-bake vegan desserts are most of the time:
- Refined-sugar-free – they use mostly liquid sweeteners like maple syrup, agave syrup, or brown rice syrup.
- Gluten-free – they use gluten-free flour only, like nut and seed flours.
- Grain-free paleo-friendly – some grains can be difficult to digest, and most raw desserts are grain-free.
However, raw desserts are still high in calories, sugar, and fat. They should be treated just like any other dessert and served as a treat, not daily food.
Raw baking must-haves
A food processor
Most raw vegan desserts are simple to make, but they require a food processor most of the time. In fact, many raw vegan desserts use Medjool dates like my no-bake brownie bites or raw chickpea to make the raw cookie dough.
A food processor is the best tool to pulse dates, raw nuts, or beans into a paste that sticks together to form the raw dough.
Coconut oil
Coconut oil is the best plant-based oil for raw baking. It’s vegan-friendly, and it has the powder to melt and solidify at room temperature, giving texture to raw brownies or raw cheesecakes under 23C/73F.
Can I substitute coconut oil in raw baking?
No, you can’t replace coconut oil with any other oil in a raw vegan dessert recipe. Coconut oil is the only oil that firms up under 23C, giving texture to raw desserts.
The only substitute potential replacement will be cocoa butter, but it’s very rich and expensive.
A freezer
Most raw vegan recipes go in the freezer to set. You can also use your fridge to set raw desserts, but it often increases the waiting time.
For example, my no-bake millionaire bars will set in 15 minutes in the freezer, but it takes 2 hours in the fridge.
Parchment paper
This is a must-have to easily release no-bake dessert bars or cookies from a tray.
Chocolate
Dark chocolate chips or dark chocolate are often used in raw vegan chocolate desserts. Make sure the one you choose doesn’t contain added milk.
Most dark chocolates above 75% cocoa are vegan-friendly.
Nuts
The main ingredients of raw vegan desserts are nuts, seeds, and nut butter.
The most common nuts used in raw baking are:
- Almonds
- Cashews
- Walnuts
- Pecans
- Macadamia
Nut butter and seed butter
In most raw vegan desserts, you will see nut butter or seed butter. Remember to use a fresh jar with drippy nut butter, or your desserts can come out dry.
Also, you can always swap a nut butter for another in my raw dessert recipe. It means that if the recipe calls for peanut butter, you can substitute it with almond butter or even tahini!
The most common nut and seed butter used in raw baking are:
- Peanut butter
- Almond butter
- Cashew butter
- Sunflower seed butter
- Tahini – hulled sesame seed butter
Sweeteners
The most common sweeteners used in raw baking are liquid refined sugar-free sweeteners like:
- Maple syrup
- Agave syrup
- Date syrup
- Brown rice syrup
You can always swap one liquid sweetener for the same amount of another sweetener in any of my raw vegan desserts. Some recipes call for flavorings, like vanilla extract or maple extract.
Raw baking shopping list
Below I put together a very simple raw vegan dessert shopping list to help you start with raw baking. It includes all the must-have pantry ingredients to starts with raw baking.
How to store raw vegan desserts?
You can store raw vegan desserts in the fridge for up to 1 week in a sealed container.
Or, you can freeze your raw desserts in a box, placing pieces of parchment paper between each portion if you intend to freeze no-bake cookies or no-bake bars. This makes it easier to thaw one serve at a time avoiding pieces sticking to each other.
Raw vegan dessert recipes
Below I listed my top simple raw vegan dessert recipes for you to try. These are perfect raw vegan holiday desserts or easy vegan desserts for any occasion. It includes raw vegan paleo desserts, meaning they are grain-free.
Most of these desserts contain nuts, but some raw vegan nut-free dessert options are sometimes available when possible.
You will find no-bake cookie recipes, raw cookie dough balls or dips, no-bake cheesecakes and brownies, and raw chocolate mousse or pies and carrot cake bites!
