I am thankful for all the input that I received on my recent twitter request for yummy and nutritious larabar and granola bar recipes. Thanks for all the recipes! I wanted to share a collection of the recipes received here today with you all. My purpose in finding a good recipe was to have a good snack bar to have on hand. The hubby in particular was requesting something to give him a little boost occasionally during his long work hours. Here is my version of a good protein bar that we totally love thanks to Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship for her tweaked almond bar! Let me say that again…it is awesome! A great source of protein and a fun way to get those nutritious nuts, seeds and dried fruit into your diet. Great for pregnant mommies too! I simply threw all the ingredients into my Blendtec Blender (my favorite kitchen appliance and functioning food processor at our home) and pulsed it for a few seconds and it turned out beautifully, but you can also use a food processor as described below.
2 cups almonds
1/4 cup flax seeds, chia seeds or pumpkin seeds (ground in a coffee grinder or blender) – I used chia with delicious results!
1/2 cup dried prunes, dates or raisins (we used prunes!)
½ cup shredded coconut (unsweetened)
½ cup unsalted peanut butter (original recipe uses almond butter, but I didn’t have that!)
½ teaspoon sea salt
½ cup coconut oil (melted)
1 Tbsp maple syrup or honey (we used honey!)
2-3 teaspoons vanilla extract
a few squares dark chocolate, less than half a bar needed for thin layer
(optional) – I melted about 1/4 bag of chocolate chips in a small saucepan for the topping
Place almonds, flax meal/seeds, dried fruit, shredded coconut, almond/peanut butter and salt in a food processor. Pulse briefly for about 10 seconds.In a small sauce pan, melt coconut oil over very low heat. Remove coconut oil from stove, stir sweeteners and vanilla into oil. Add coconut oil mixture to food processor and pulse until ingredients form a coarse paste. Press mixture into an 8 x 8 glass baking dish. Chill in refrigerator for 1 hour, until mixture hardens. In a small saucepan, melt chocolate over very low heat, stirring continuously. Spread melted chocolate over bars; return to refrigerator for 30 minutes, until chocolate hardens. Remove from refrigerator, cut into bars and serve. Makes about 12-15 bars. Store in refrigerator or freeze for later enjoyment!
Other Snack Bar Recipes
Granola Bars – (Danielle @ Naturally Knocked Up)
Larabar Recipe – (Clean Eating Online)
Granola Bars (Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship)
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- Healthy Snack Ideas
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Oooh – this looks delicious! Definitely something my husband would love, too!
Thanks for this recipe. I think I have all of the ingredients to give it a try. My daughter has cheer practice after school 2 days a week and I need to pack something that will give her stamina yet taste good. I will let you know how it goes. Thanks again for all of your great posts.
What’s the consistency of these when they’re ready to eat? Are they soft? Chewy? Crunchy? We’re camping out this weekend for my husband’s b-day, and this would be a great snack to make and take along… but I’m wondering if my 2 and 3 year-olds can eat them?
They sound delicious! I’m definitely going to try them for the hubby and me. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Oh yes, my two year old Karis loves these! They are chewy and delicious!
This looks great! As soon as we replenish our honey & coconut oil supplies and I get some almonds, I’m going to make these. They will be the perfect snack for my pregnant self!
These look great – and I just happen to have everything I need. (What luck!)
I’ve been looking for a simple replacement for Cascadian Farm granola bars – gonna try these today!
Thanks!
Thank you for sharing this!! I love that it uses almond butter instead of peanut butter since I’m allergic to it. =) Yay! I can’t wait to try these!
You just have the best website. I absolutely love coming here and seeing all your great ideas..and those of others! You are truly helping me take better care of my family of 6! Thank you so very much and may God bless you and your loved ones always.
Looks great!!!! Can you leave out the seeds if you can not eat them?
Erin H.
Sure thing! This recipe is very easy to adjust to your needs and preferences. It works great!
Thanks!!!!
Okay, you’ve officially made me hungry. I agree these are a great alternative to commerical protein bars (who wants all those soy products and preservatives and sugar alcohols?). And they look super delicious, too! I am going to have to save this recipe for sure!
Do you think I could use a magic bullet to make these? I don’t have a food processor. They sound wonderful! Also, I only have sweetened coconut-not the best, I know
; Do you think I could just cut back on the honey to a tsp or 2? Thanks!!
I have never used a magic bullet. It would be worth a try. I would definitely half or quarter the recipe in order to fit in your machine. I definitely think you can use sweetened coconut and just eliminate the other sweetener. It is optional!
I just made these this morning and I don’t have a food processor either. I’m not familiar with a magic bullet but I used my mini food chopper and just put in small amounts at a time and it turned out well. Thanks so much for this recipe it is really delicious and a keeper. I didn’t have chocolate squares or chocolate chips so I made my own chocolate out of cocoa, honey and coconut oil. It turned out great!
I halved the recipe with my magic bullet and they turned out great! Thank you for both of your suggestions-I added the almonds first to grind, then the rest of the ingredients. I also used salted almond butter, so I didn’t add the salt, and sweetened coconut, so I didn’t add the honey. Topped them with just a couple squares of melted super dark chocolate. Wow, so yummy!
Those look amazing, and with CHOCOLATE on top? Oh my! thanks for the recipe!
I have a friend who can only eat Gluten Free, would this recipe apply with that diet? I’m still learning a lot about that diet and she loves protein bars but only eats the store bought kind. I would love to share this recipe with her if it is Gluten Free. I’m sure she would love it.
As far as I understand, yes, these would be gluten free.
We are always in need of a snack like this, so perhaps I’ll try that soon! Thanks for sharing!
Wow – think I want to try these asap. With the exception of the choc. they’re scd and GAPS legal, yippie!
If you were to use pumkin seeds, would you hull them and sprout or not?
I just dried out some pumpkin seeds, but I’ve never hulled them before.
God bless
I just use regular raw pumpkin seeds. You can sprout them as you desire, but I did not.
Are you familiar with Cathe Olson’s recent cookbook, The Vegetarian Mother’s Cookbook? It is WONDERFUL. Many quick, nourishing, and healthy recipes, and especially great for pregnant and nursing mothers. Anyway, she has a great recipe that I think tastes better than Larabars…
Energy Bars
By Cathe Olson
This is a delicious, raw snack.
* 1/4 cup sesame seeds
* 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
* 1/2 cup raisins
* 1/2 cup dried figs (I used dates)
* 1/2 cup peanut butter, almond butter, or tahini (I used walnuts, and combined all ingredients in my food processor at the same time)
Place sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, raisins, and figs in food processor with metal blade. Chop until everything is ground together. Add nut or seed butter and mix until combined. Roll mixture into balls or press into 8-inch round cake pan and cut into 1-inch squares. Keep refrigerated.
Makes about 3 dozen (For me, it made about 2 dozen).
Note: Nuts can be substituted for seeds and other dried fruit can be substituted for raisins and figs.
Variation Coconut Energy Bars: Add 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut to mixture. Add a little coconut milk if necessary to help balls hold together.
Enjoy!
Just curious – would you recommend getting a Blendtec or a Bosch mixer with blender if you could only get one.
It depends upon what you are desiring to use it for and the size of your family. If you have a small family, you can definitely get away completely with the Blendtec because you can knead up a loaf of bread in it really easy. If you want to make a lot of frozen fruit smoothies, go with the blentec as it is a far more powerful blender and will withstand the challenge. Overall, for its many multi-purposing, I would recommend the Blendtec, because you can grind grain, make a loaf of bread, make ice cream, basic food processing, homemade peanut butter, mix muffins & sweet breads, etc. The list is almost endless! I am definitely using it more now then my bosch. The bosch is great for making big batches of bread, making butter, mixing various pastry recipes, etc. I hope that helps!
Thank you Lindsey. It helps a lot!
Thanks for this!
I just finished putting mine in the fridge and noticed that I didn’t add my prunes in! The directions don’t mention when to add the raisons/prunes. Boo! Hopefully it’ll still taste alright.
Sorry about that! I made the update. I am sure they will taste fine, as the original recipe didn’t even have the dried fruit. That was my addition! You can also remove it from the refrigerator, soften, and then add the dried fruit if desired. Otherwise, save them for next time!
They turned out fine. Thanks for the recipe! I cut up a few dates and ate them along with the bars. Yum! Made the Sloppy Lentils slow cooker recipe today too. It turned out great. We put cheese on it and put it on some rice. That was my first time eating lentils.
I made this and it tastes great! Even my husband who’s not into protein bars liked it. I usually have little to add to these great recipes and posts, but for those interested I calculated out the calories, fat, fiber and protein content of these bars since personally I am losing weight (loooong way to go to the finish line but coming along quite nicely;-) )
As for the optional ingredients I used flax seed, PB, raisins, honey, and 1/2 cup chocolate chips and this is the nutritional content for it if cut into 15 bars:
Calories: 303
Fat: 24
Fiber: 4
Protein: 6
WEIGHT WATCHERS POINTS: 7 (I do Weight Watchers BUT doing it with real foods.)
Thanks for the recipe Lindsay!
Deanna.
I have tried it. It was fast to make and it is very good. However, I don’t have the feedback yet from my boys, but I think they are going to like it.
Thank you very much for this recipe!
Could we use molasses rather than honey~~ I make cornmeal waffles and I use molasses for the sweetener~ We joke that I have burnt the batter since it turns a dark brown from using molasses~~
This looks like my family would so enjoy it~~
Blessings~
tamela
I am sure you can…if you don’t mind that stronger molasses flavor.
A FUNNY TRIBUTE to this recipe’s tastiness… my brother (who is not by any means into “healthy stuff”) came over today while we were out and perused the kitchen as he normally does. As he was making something for himself to eat he decided to have some of our protein bars thinking it was dessert. He ended up getting too full to eat what he made after eating a bar and a half. He had no idea it was “healthy.”
Wow! These are SO good! It was my first time using coconut oil!! Yum!
I also made sloppy lentils today in my crockpot… Yummm!
Thank you for such an awesome website!
Ooh, yum! These look delish!
I made these bars over the weekend. They turned out great! Thanks for the great recipe. And I just requested the Blendtec for Christmas this year!! Can’t wait!
I just made these for my pregnant self b/c ants on a log are getting a little boring
Oh my! I only tasted a little bit left in the blender and wow, I can’t wait for them to be ready! Thank you so much for this recipe, I’ve really been struggling trying to make healthy choices when all this baby seems to want is junk. I am very happy with this recipe and I’m sure baby and midwife will be too!
the flavor of these was terrific. I had a problem though! Mine fell apart and were hard to get out of the pan! Any solutions to my trouble? Also, when I went to cut them, the chocolate cracked and then the whole bare fell apart! lol!! If you have any tips on this I would greatly appreciate it, because other than that, they were awesome!!
I made your recipe this morning! It turned out so delicious plus they are so healthy. Thank you for sharing!
made these today for a friend.
I added some extra items we had in the pantry, a few apricots, dried cranberries, sesame seeds and substituted LSA because we had no flax.
I drizzled the chocolate so there is not so much on each bar.
does anyone have a recipe for the hard yoghurt topping that is often on top of store bought bars?
thanks for the recipe idea!
Delicious!!!! And very rich – I won’t have seconds of these again. ha! My toddler loved them also and I am hoping they will help him gain a little weight. Next time I will probably substitute pecans or walnuts for some of the almonds since I have an excess of them from friends.