Healthy Easter Desserts That Are Full of Flavor

Celebrating Easter is synonymous with sitting down to a delicious meal, and no holiday brunch, lunch, or dinner is complete without a dessert. If you're looking for a lightened-up option to serve after the traditional ham feast, you're in luck. Making a healthy Easter dessert isn't complicated, and the results are absolutely delicious.

Focus on seasonal fruits, like strawberries and rhubarb, which features in crisps, tartlets, easy cakes, and also are poached or cooked into silky sauces. Look for recipes that cut back on sugar and fat or use alternatives to processed sugars like maple syrup, honey, and coconut sugar. Try recipes that call for baking with olive oil in place of butter or use probiotic-packed yogurt rather than milk or cream. Trust us, our health-conscious sweets, like the gorgeous Coconut-Sugar Hummingbird Cake that's pictured here, look so good that your Easter guests will be doing a double-take. This delightful recipe calls for coconut sugar instead of granulated for a more nutrient-rich option and packs in pineapple and bananas for additional sweetness. If you want to make it healthier still, skip the frosting and make this beauty a naked cake.

Wondering what to make for the chocolate-lover in your life this Easter? Bake our Fudgy Chocolate Beet Cake. It's a mouthwatering recipe that features surprising ingredients like puréed beets and whole grain spelt flour. Both add nutritious elements to this chocolatey treat without sacrificing the classic cocoa flavor.

You can feel good about eating delicious treats when you make one of these healthy Easter desserts. From fruit-filled concoctions to delectable cakes, any of these healthier (but still flavorful!) desserts is the perfect way to finish off your Easter feast.

Yogurt Panna Cotta with Strawberries and Granola

Sliced strawberries and crunchy granola make sweet toppings for this silky-smooth panna cotta. It's lightened up thanks to a mix of yogurt and heavy cream rather than the usual all-cream recipe. This healthy Easter dessert is also egg-, wheat-, and will be gluten-free if you use a granola that's made with certified gluten-free oats.

Pavlova with Rhubarb and Pistachios

A cloud of meringue with a delicate, crisp exterior and ephemeral interior makes a regal base for soft, sweet-tart rhubarb and crunchy pistachios. While meringues are not sugar-free, they are fat- and gluten-free.

Hazelnut Carrot-Oat Cupcakes with Cream-Cheese Frosting

Oat flour not only ups the nutrition factor in these mini carrot cakes, but it also makes them extra tender. Hazelnuts (which are considered good fats) go into the batter and are also sprinkled on top of the frosted cupcakes.

Dark Chocolate-Walnut Date Bar

Vegan and gluten-free, this giant chocolate bar is filled with an irresistible mixture of walnuts, dates, and peanut butter. Bonus: You don't even have to turn on the oven as it all comes together in the fridge.

Almond Custard Tart with Strawberries

No dairy here. Homemade almond milk is combined with fragrant vanilla bean and minimal sugar to make this creamy filling. It's surrounded by a crunchy oat crust made with coconut oil instead of butter and topped with plenty of fresh strawberries, making it perfect for an Easter celebration.

Meyer Lemon Upside-Down Cake

Meyer lemons shine atop this sunny dessert. Peeking out from underneath is a gluten-free almond cake that's sweetened with honey.

Citrus Cornmeal Cake with Wine-Roasted Strawberries

Made with olive oil instead of butter, this easy one-layer cake combines cornmeal and flour, orange juice and zest, and shredded coconut keep it tender and moist. The luscious wine-roasted strawberries are all the adornment it needs.

Carrot-Cake Thumbprint Cookies

Skip the grand carrot cake and make these petite cookies instead. A mixture of grated carrots, pecans, golden raisins, and oats serves as the base, and the tangy filling features fresh goat cheese rather than the typical cream cheese.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp

If you're lucky enough to find rhubarb and strawberries at the farmers' market, snap them up and make this easy dessert. Garnish with fresh basil for a surprising but tasty savory note perfect for Easter.

Lemon-Coconut Tofu Squares

Silken tofu is the game-changer in these light-as-a-feather lemon bars. It's puréed with lemon zest and juice for the filling and teamed with a whole wheat-and-coconut oil crust.

Fudgy Chocolate Beet Cake

Puréed beets and whole-grain spelt flour are the secrets to this better-for-you chocolate dessert that still tastes ultra-decadent. You can even skip the chocolate-ganache frosting if you want to go lighter—the cake can definitely stand on its own.

Blueberry-Ricotta Tart

Blueberries are piled on top of this wholesome tart that pairs an almond-and-wheat germ crust with a creamy ricotta filling.

Poached Rhubarb with Elderflower Sabayon

Sabayon, a light, frothy French custard sauce, is flavored with delicate elderflower liqueur. It turns poached rhubarb into a luscious Easter dessert and balances out the fruit's tartness beautifully.

Lemon-Yogurt Cupcakes

Whole-wheat flour and low-fat yogurt yield cupcakes with a moist, tender crumb. The bright lemon flavor goes nicely with the sweet-tart raspberry frosting.

Tartlets with Yogurt Pastry Cream and Strawberries

While the pastry is all-butter puff (but store-bought for ease and speed), we think these elegant tartlets qualify as healthier because they spotlight strawberries at their peak season and set those glossy fruits atop a lightened pastry cream that's made with yogurt, not the usual milk.

Almond-Coconut Chewy Chocolate Cookies

Coconut and fudgy dough combine in this delicious macaroon-inspired treat. The cookies are a perfect gluten-free Easter dessert.

Strawberry and Apricot Crisp with Pine-Nut Crumble

Fresh apricots and strawberries steal the show in this fruit-filled crumble. It takes only 10 minutes to prep, then leave the oven to transform it into the perfect end to your Easter dinner.

Berry "Pizza"

In this light and sweet dessert, flour tortillas, part-skim ricotta cheese, berries, and jam combine for a fruit-focused treat. It's as easy to make as it is delicious, and it comes together in just 25 minutes.