Baklava is a delicious Middle Eastern treat made with layers of crunchy puff pastry (filo) and a heart of crunchy nuts, all glazed in a gooey syrup. As good as that sounds, the traditional recipe uses a shocking amount of butter and sugar. This makes the treat not suitable for dieters and not vegan either. Let’s try to improve that.
Below we will do vegan lebanese baklava without butter and without honey.
But first, what is special about Lebanese baklava? This variant is our favorite because it uses rosewater for added flavor. Rose water is an essence of water and rose petals. It smells and tastes amazing and plays so well with the nuts and syrup in the baklava.
To make vegan and healthier baklava, we substituted oil for butter and maple syrup for white sugar syrup. Maple syrup contains about 30% less sugar than white sugar, which contributes to a better nutritional profile for this recipe.
While we’ve made good progress and improved the nutritional profile of traditional baklava, we gave this recipe 1 out of 3 hearts. A heart on Foodaciously stands for “indulgent”, which means that you should eat this food in moderation and sporadically.
If you limit yourself to a square or two of this dessert every other day, you can enjoy the amazing taste of Lebanese baklava with peace of mind. In fact, two squares of our baklava is only about 200 calories and 14% of your sugar RDI. Perfectly acceptable and way better than most other desserts.
NOTE: The standard ingredients make about 40 squares, and one serving is two pieces. You can adjust the servings below to suit your household needs.