As You Wish No Bake Granola Bars
I love no-bake treats. I also love baked treats. Ok, I love any kind of treats. It’s the quickness and ease of the no baked kind that I appreciate when I’m in a hurry and need to make something! This recipe is one of those!
These granola bars are lower in sugar as it’s a small amount of honey that provides the sweetness. They are very easy to make, take only a few minutes, and you can add whatever you wish to them to suit your tastebuds. These are a nutritious snack any time of day.
This is my basic granola bar recipe – go crazy with it to make it your own. Just follow the measured amount of dry ingredients in the base recipe, if you substitute, because being too generous with your dry ingredients may result in there not being enough of the liquid mixture to stick it all together.
Prep time: 10 Minutes / Fridge Rest Time: 1 Hour / Number of Servings: 15 squares
Ingredients:
1/3 cup Coconut Oil (Options: use ghee or butter if not dairy-free)
¼ cup Honey (Option: use maple syrup) - use 1/3 cup if you like it a little sweeter.
3/4 cup Nut Butter of your choice (my favs are almond and natural peanut butter and I often use half of each)
1½ teaspoon Vanilla
¾ cup Large Flake Oats
¼ cup Quick Cook Oats
1½ cups Puffed Brown Rice Cereal (Option: other small puffed cereal like quinoa – likely you’ll have to get this at a health food store)
1 Tablespoon Hemp Hearts (Optional)
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 cup unsalted Nuts - chopped (I used ¾ cup walnuts and ¼ cup sliced almonds in the photos)
1 cup Pitted Dates – chopped (I slice the date in half and make 5 or 6 cuts to have very small pieces)
2/3 cup unsweetened Shredded Coconut Flakes
¼ teaspoon Sea Salt (Optional)
How It’s Made:
Prepare a 9’x9’ baking pan - line it with parchment paper, leaving an overhang to eventually lift the bars out easily.
In a small pan, over medium heat, melt the coconut oil and the honey together, whisking until smooth. Add in the nut butter(s) and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Add the vanilla and give it one more whisk. Remove from heat and set aside as you blend the dry ingredients.
In a large mixing bowl, add the oats, puffed cereal, cinnamon, nuts, dates and coconut. Mix thoroughly.
Add the coconut oil/honey/nut butter mixture to the bowl and mix it well to make sure all the dry ingredients are coated in the wet mixture. You’ll see the mixture will start to clump together – you want this! If it doesn’t, melt a little more coconut oil and nut butter together and add to the granola bar mixture until those clumps happen.
Spoon the mixture into your prepared pan and press the mixture down firmly to compact the mixture as much as possible. I cover the top with another piece of parchment, take a heavy glass with a flat bottom and do the last press down of the mixture with it.
Let the pan rest in the fridge for an hour or longer. Take them out, remove from the pan, cut into bars or squares (no smaller than 3 x 5 as in the photos – they crumble if cut too small) and enjoy! These are best kept in the fridge. They also freeze well!
Enjoy!
Variations:
Use cranberries (chopped), dried apricots (chopped), dried pineapple or organic raisins, in place of the dates, or include a mixture of a half-cup of two of them.
Add ¼ teaspoon ginger, nutmeg or pumpkin spice mix with the dry ingredients along with the cinnamon.
If you use sun butter as your nut butter, add sunflower seeds to the nut mixture.
Reduce the nuts by a ¼ cup and add ¼ cup banana chips (crushed into smaller pieces) or pumpkin seeds (especially if using pumpkin spice mix!).
Add ¼ cup dark chocolate, peanut butter or white chocolate chips – mix these in last after the mixture has cooled or else they will start to melt. These will increase the sweetness of the bars and a small amount goes a long way.
