14 Heart-Healthy Desserts-Irresistibly Delicious!

These 14 heart-healthy desserts are packed with fiber, healthy fats, and dark chocolate. All gluten-free, mostly vegan, and 100% delicious!

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Heart-Healthy Desserts for Your Sweet Tooth

Sweet tooth be damned! As a fellow dessert lover (in moderation) and heart health aficionado, there’s no way I’m giving up dessert. And you shouldn’t have to either!

These heart-healthy dessert recipes are packed with wholesome ingredients that work hard for your cardiovascular wellness, without sacrificing the flavor that makes a healthy dessert worth making in the first place. No matter how healthy a dessert is, if it’s not delicious, I’m not making it!

The Secret to Heart-Healthy Desserts

Nutrient-dense ingredients rich in cholesterol-lowering soluble fiber (1), heart-healthy fats, and plant-based polyphenols are the key to creating delicious heart-healthy desserts.

Some of my favorite heart-healthy ingredients to include are:

Dark chocolate is one of the most satisfying heart-healthy ingredients you can cook with, and I always reach for one with 70% or higher cacao for that deep, rich flavor in these desserts.

If you want to go a step further for your heart health, I add CocoaVia™ Cocoa Flavanols to my morning coffee, smoothies, and baked goods with unsweetened cocoa powder. It’s made with their proprietary Cocoapro™ cocoa extract, one of the most concentrated and consistent sources of cocoa flavanols available, and it’s become one of my favorite ways to support heart and brain health as part of my daily habits!

Nuts and seeds deliver heart-healthy mono- and polyunsaturated fats that help improve your cholesterol profile. Walnuts, chia seeds, hemp seeds, and flaxseeds go one step further with plant-based omega-3 fatty acids, which have anti-inflammatory properties that benefit cardiovascular health.

For the full picture on anti-inflammatory eating, check out my anti-inflammatory foods list and shopping guide.

Beans and legumes might be the most underrated dessert ingredient out there. Black beans, chickpeas, and lentils are rich in soluble fiber, which binds to cholesterol in the digestive tract and helps remove it from the body. They also add protein and moisture to baked goods, which actually improves texture. I promise you cannot taste the beans.

Oats and other whole grains contain beta-glucans, a soluble fiber that has well-documented cholesterol-lowering effects. Research suggests that consuming 3 grams of beta-glucan daily can meaningfully lower LDL cholesterol. (2) A serving of oats gets you about halfway there, which is why I lean on them so often in this collection. If you’re following a gluten-free diet, just make sure to choose certified gluten-free oats.

When it comes to making your desserts good for your heart, you’ll also want to minimize the following ingredients:

• Foods high in saturated fat: Butter, cream, full-fat coconut milk
• High added sugar: Naturally, you’ll want to sweeten your heart-healthy desserts. Just don’t add too much! Many of my recipes call for maple syrup, not because it’s inherently better for you than other sweeteners, but because I like the taste. If you’re really cutting back on added sugar, consider trying allulose, monk fruit, and stevia as low- or no-calorie sweeteners. Often, a combination of these sweeteners tastes best. Tip! Experiment with moderately reducing the amount of sweetener in your favorite desserts until you arrive at the perfect balance!

No-Bake Heart Healthy Desserts

High Protein Heart-Healthy Desserts

Heart-Healthy Desserts: Brownies & Chocolate

Heart-Healthy Desserts with Fruit