Today’s zucchini energy balls is a recipe that’s packed with a wide range of healthy foods – couscous, alkaline cacao powder, peanuts, zucchini, coconut and almonds. Talk about a range of nutrients!
Why You’ll Love These Chocolate-ly Zucchini Energy Balls
- Superfoods Unite: So many great-for-you foods all in one energy ball makes it easy to get in nutrients on the go!
- Hidden Greens: The zucchini is sneakily hiding in this chocolate peanut butter bite. It’s perfect to get kids to eat their veggies!
- Use up leftovers: If you have leftover boiled grains or spoiling veggies, this could be the recipe to use them up!
- Dairy-Free, Soy-Free: For those with allergies, these balls are dairy AND soy free!
Ingredients and Substitutions
Here are the main ingredients in this recipe as well as their substitutions. However, I haven’t tried these substitutions so I can’t vouch for them, but leave a comment below if a substitute works for you.
Almonds: Try substituting almond meal, raw unsalted cashews, raw unsalted pecans or more peanuts.
Peanuts: Try substituting toasted salted cashews or almonds. Whether you use peanuts or another nut will make a difference in that peanut butter flavour – peanuts have a much more distinct taste, so replace at your own (tastebud) risk!
Couscous: Quinoa is another small sized grain that could be substituted. Make sure to squeeze ALL of the water out before blending!
Cacao: Cacao powder is a less processed, alkaline version of cocoa powder. If you can find it, the nutrients are much higher in cacao than cocoa powder. Taste-wise you can substitute regular cocoa powder, dutch-processed or not.
Liquid Sweetener: There are a lot of liquid sweeteners that act as a binder, such as agave, coconut syrup, date syrup, brown rice syrup and so on. You could use the same amount of medjool dates for a raw sweetener to see how it works!
Zucchini: Zucchini has some amount of water content in it to help bind the dough. Although you might be able to get away with using shredded carrots or apples instead. Make sure to squeeze ALL of the water out before blending here as well.
Coconut: Shredded Coconut can be used sweetened or unsweetened depending on your preferences. To avoid extra sugar, stick with the unsweetened type. Make sure you use small-flaked coconut, the larger flaked one won’t stick as well to the dough.
Notes
- Make sure all the water is squeezed out from the zucchini and the couscous before blending
- The couscous should be fully cooked before measuring and drained of water after measuring
Energy Balls All Day
Here are some of my favourite energy bites, all made in the blender in 15 minutes!
If you make this recipe, leave a comment and rating! Don’t forget to tag your photos @peanut_palate on Instagram. Enjoy!
Zucchini Energy Balls
Equipment
- Blender
- Large hole grater
Ingredients
- ¼ cup freshly grated zucchini
- 2 tbsp cacao powder
- ⅓ cup roasted, salted peanuts
- ½ cup cooked small-grain couscous
- ¼ cup raw, unsalted almonds
- 3 tbsp liquid sweetener
- Pinch pink salt
- ⅛ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ to ⅓ cup finely shredded coconut (small-flaked)
Instructions
- Add all ingredients, except the coconut, to a high speed blender until a dough forms.
- Remove the dough from the blender and shape into 10 balls.
- Add the shredded coconut to a small bowl. Roll each ball in the coconut.
Notes
- Keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator to store
- Keep an ice pack in a lunchbox if packing these on the go
