This healthy vegan marshmallow fluff is going to rock your world…
Sweetener of choice
+
Water from a can of chickpeas
=
Homemade marshmallow fluff ????
Crazy, right?!
I can’t take credit for this brilliant “bean liquid egg whites” discovery.
The idea was sent to me in a facebook message earlier this year by a reader who discovered you could whip up the liquid from a can of garbanzo beans with sugar to form stiff peaks then pipe the mixture out and bake it into vegan meringues.
Since readers often write to tell me their own recipe ideas or experiments, I didn’t think too much about the message at first, especially since meringue and I have always been more of acquaintances than friends.
However, a few months later when I noticed some of my friends posting stunningly beautiful chickpea vegan meringues on instagram, suddenly I was intrigued.
Healthy Vegan Marshmallow Fluff
Then another reader left a comment on the blog asking if I’d tried bean meringue yet and mentioning that chickpea liquid–commonly referred to as aquafaba–has been used as an egg replacer since as early as in a 1968 cookbook (Ten Talents, by Rosalie and Frank J Hurd).
Wait… so it can be an egg replacer in other things besides meringue?!?
Like crepes?! Or baked goods??
So many ideas are swirling around in my head right now…
Christina’s message had mentioned whipping the liquid with fine sugar to form meringue, but I wanted to know if the aquafaba would also work with a liquid sweetener.
Only one way to find out! Seven minutes in, my pseudo meringue still looked like water, and I was almost ready to give up and throw the whole thing out.
But—magically at minute 9—it began to thicken… and thicken… and thicken even more!
Above – watch the video of how to make vegan marshmallow fluff
I had a baking sheet all ready to go for the meringues…
The only problem was that I just couldn’t seem to stop dipping my spoon into the airy cream.
It was just like marshmallow fluff!
Ideas for ways to use this healthy marshmallow fluff include:
Homemade s’mores, as frosting for cupcakes or my Vegan Chocolate Cake Recipe, in fluffernutter sandwiches… the possibilities go on and on!
Edit – There’s also now a version for Chocolate Marshmallow Fluff!
Vegan Marshmallow Fluff
Ingredients
- 1 can chickpeas or white beans (15oz)
- 1/3 cup sweetener of choice, such as agave, fine sugar, or xylitol for sugar-free
- optional pinch cream of tartar, for stabilization
Instructions
- Open the can of beans and drain just the watery part into a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl. (Save the actual beans for a different recipe. If you need inspiration, here are 50+ Healthy Uses For Canned Beans.) You should have about 1/2 cup chickpea liquid. Add all other ingredients, and beat with an electric mixer or in a stand mixer for 12-16 minutes. It will look thin for quite a while—and you’ll probably be cursing me—but don’t give up hope! Mine really began to thicken around minutes 10-11. Cover and refrigerate any leftovers. It separates overnight, but re-beating works perfectly. (I’ve not tried this recipe without beaters, but you are free to experiment. The sugar version can be baked into meringues; I haven’t tried baking the liquid-sweetener version.) I’ve tried this healthy marshmallow fluff with both regular and unsalted bean liquid and can’t taste a big difference, so use whatever you have on hand.View Nutrition Facts
Notes
Have you made this recipe?
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More Vegan Recipes:
Vegan Breakfast Recipes – 50 Vegan Recipes
And now I’m going to go work on some homemade Mallomars…
Phala Bowles says
😍😍😍
S says
This was surprisingly good!!
Kathy says
There is something off with your website. I went to print both this recipe and the one for Sweet Potato Casserole. There is a tab you can click if you want an image included when you print. Even if you click this feature, the image does not appear. Just thought you should know. This happens whether I am using a MAC or PC.
Laura says
I would like to know if this can be used on top of cupcakes and then coated in a glaze.
Do they have to be eaten within hours or will there be a Cinderella moment when the fluff melts and gets watery?
Adriana says
I’m thinking about using this recipe for the filler of homemade “moon pies” for a moon themed birthday party! Do you think this fluff will work if I assemble and dip the “pies” in chocolate 24 hours in advance? Or will the filling separate in between the sandwich? Thanks for your help! 🙂
Leslie Craig says
On the Marshmallow fluff, can I use it to make treats that call for melted mashmallows?
Jessie says
So, um… WOW. Katie, I just have to tell you, this ended up making a fantastic “icing” for an ice cream cake. I’ve seen comments where the general consensus is that this won’t hold up in the fridge, but it freezes quite nicely! My husband wanted an ice cream cake for his birthday, and you delivered. Your vegan brownies, I made as the base. The only change I made was adding espresso powder. The ice cream layer was some Oatly! ice cream I got from Whole Foods. After all that was sufficiently cold and frozen together, I whipped this marshmallow fluff up and covered the top. I’d tried like a week before this to make almond butter, but it failed. It was super crumbly and never got smooth, but I threw it in the fridge hoping to find a use for it. Well, turns out it pairs very nicely with aquaphaba marshmallows. Crumbled that along the top, and now I have a cake everyone requests on the regular. Thanks for your amazing recipes! This one was a winner for sure, and I’d advise anyone on the fence to just go ahead and try it.
Jessie says
Aquaphaba is a binder, and if you used it with a sweetener that sticks, I wouldn’t see why not? But it also doesn’t keep its shape the same way actual marshmallows do, so that’s a tough one. Maybe cut your recipe in half and see what happens. I’m not Katie, just a random passerby on the internet, but I’m genuinely curious now that you mention it. Lol
Shannon Kisa says
This is my first time trying this recipe. I used my chickpeas the day before, so I refrigerated the water. It took only a few minutes to become creamy! It tastes kind of interesting but very cool! 4 stars for the beany taste:)
Emily P says
Made this with some sugar-free coffee syrup. It’s a pretty runny syrup (compared to the agave suggested in the recipe), and that combined with the sweetness of the final product will lead me to try it with far less in the future. The final product (after 13 minutes with an electric hand mixer) started going soft within 10 minutes.
So excited to experiment more with this recipe!
Kallystan says
This is so rich and buttery, by the way Op, it can be baked! I added honey to mine I would say maybe about a tablespoon of honey? It’s still tasted absolutely amazing with the stevia. I put my oven at 375 I’m cooking my sweet potato pie for 14 minutes!
Yajaira says
This recipe was amazingly delicious and the results were beyond expectations I stared to record on video how beautiful the marshmallow fluff came together.