Granola bars have to be one of my favourite things to make. I’ve had a soft spot for them since running the bakery. I look back to those days with (mostly) warm, fuzzy memories. Maybe making + shipping 500 bars a week by hand wasn’t ideal, but it was the experience that I enjoyed the most – the process of growing a business and having others enjoy something I created from scratch. I still look back at the pictures and laugh, seeing a 9-foot table buried in packaged bars while I stuck on the front and back label as fast as possible. My mother-in-law used to help assemble all the boxes for me. Some days I’d walk into the living room to see about 200 boxes of various sizes assembled and stacked in towers with all of the shipping envelopes stuck on the top. And then Eric would often help me at night when he got home from work. It takes a village. We’d create an assembly line packing all the boxes with bars, receipts, labels, hand-written thank-yous, business cards, all before sealing them up and attaching the shipping label. It was organized chaos to say the least. Heavy on the chaos part. Ever since I closed the bakery, I’ve had it in the back of my mind that I’d like to open it again some day, if the stars align. We’ll have to see. For now, I still enjoy making granola bars whenever I can just for the heck of it.
By the way – It’s official – I’m including two of the most popular Glo Bar recipes in my cookbook, so keep your eyes peeled for those!
I’ve made these protein bars a few different ways over the past few weeks – one with peanut butter, one with almond butter, and the last with sunflower seed butter. All worked out lovely, although the roasted peanut butter was probably my favourite, flavour wise (no surprise here). Rest assured you can make these nut-free simply by using sunflower seed butter (shown top, right). My go-to is Sunbutter.
This recipe also calls for plant-based protein powder. This is the Sunwarrior powder that I use. I specifically bought the unflavoured version of Sunwarrior because I’ve concluded that stevia gives me headaches (anyone else?) and I’m really not crazy about the flavour of stevia to begin with. If you are using a sweetened protein powder, you’ll likely have to reduce the liquid sweetener in this recipe and make up for the loss of liquid with a bit of non-dairy milk. Just play around with it – as long as your dough isn’t super dry and crumbly you should be fine! We’re aiming for the consistency of cookie dough here.
After mixing the dough together, simply press it into the pan (I like to use a pastry roller to smooth it out – you can find these at the Dollarstore!) and pop it into the freezer while you melt the chocolate.
{Here is a random freezer shot featuring fillo shells, chickpeas, butternut squash, hemp hearts, blueberries, pita bread, torn kale (for smoothies), Amy’s California burgers, and corn!}
Finally, slice into bars, drizzle on the chocolate, and freeze until set. I love keeping them stashed in the freezer – they are the perfect pick me up when my energy is low and I need something fast.
Quick 'n Easy No-Bake Protein Bars
Yield
12
Prep time
Cook time
0 minutes
Chill time
15 minutes
Total time
These no-bake bars are thrown together in minutes and make the perfect snack to store in the freezer for a quick burst of energy. Feel free to use sunflower seed butter to make these nut-free. I used an unsweetened/unflavoured protein powder, so if you are using a sweetened protein powder, you will likely have to reduce the liquid sweetener (and make up for the lack of liquid by adding some non-dairy milk). Play around with it if necessary and aim for a cookie dough texture. You can also roll the dough into balls and add in chocolate chips if you don't wish to make them into bar form.
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups gluten-free rolled oats, blended into a flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened/unflavoured vegan protein powder (I use Sunwarrior Warrior Blend Natural)
- 1/2 cup rice crisp cereal
- 1/4-1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt, to taste
- 1/2 cup natural peanut butter, almond butter, or sunflower seed butter
- 1/2 cup pure maple syrup (or liquid sweetener of choice)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons mini dark chocolate chips (I use Enjoy Life)
- 1/2 tablespoon coconut oil
Directions
- Line an 8-inch square pan with a piece of parchment paper. Mix the oat flour, protein powder, rice crisp, and salt together in a large bowl.
- Add in the nut/seed butter, maple syrup, and vanilla. Stir well to combine. If the mixture is a bit dry, add a splash of non-dairy milk and mix again.
- Press into pan and roll out with a pastry roller until smooth. Pop into the freezer.
- Melt the chocolate chips and coconut oil together in a small pot over low heat. When half of the chips have melted, remove from heat and stir until smooth.
- After freezing the bars for about 5-10 minutes, remove from freezer and slice into bars. Drizzle with melted chocolate and freeze again until set. Store in the freezer for a week or longer in an air-tight freezer bag or container.
Oof, totaled up it looks like there are over 11g of sugar per bar — that’s two to three times worse than most store-bought brands. I’m sure these taste great but they are a dessert item, I can’t believe you market them as healthy. Maple syrup isn’t better sugar, it’s still sugar.
Hey Sunny,
I’m curious as to which brands are so low in sugar? I don’t recall seeing any less than 9 grams per bar and many are around 20 grams per bar. As I mentioned in my post, feel free to substitute stevia-sweetened protein powder and reduce the maple syrup accordingly. You could also reduce the sugar in these bars by omitting the chocolate. I personally don’t worry too much about occasional sugar grams because I know I eat a balanced diet most of the time.
I’d love to order a box of these to be shipped to my house : )
These look great! Thank you for sharing! And YES, stevia+me= massive headache and stomach pain too. It’s a shame, seems like a dream sweetener otherwise although I heard it can cause infertility and birth defects…
Angela – as a recent vegan, I find my fridge has become over run with plastic bags filled with various nuts/seeds that I buy in bulk. I’d love to find some nice containers (ideally labelled) to tidy this up a bit. How do you manage it? Thank you!
I love the idea of crushing up the oats & cereal to make it smooth! It must be so yummy!
Ok…I made these tonight and they are ridiculously good. You are amazing. I can’t wait for the cookbook.
YUM! Can’t wait to try these!
Thanks for the delicious recipe! I made these last night and gave one to my husband this morning. I told him it was a homemade protein bar and he looked at me weird. I said “good?” and he said “too good to be a protein bar.” :-)
Aww cute :)
I cannot wait to make these!! I am always on the lookout for portable snacks! Cookbook – yaaaaaaaaaaay!!!
Sherry Tejada
These sound great! I need to get some protein powder and I’m all set! Thanks :)
Any refined Stevia (any version that is white) gives me a headache too. I have found the actual leaf simply ground into powder (still green) to have a nice earthy taste and to not cause headaches. Simply dry stevia leaf ground into powder.. It is great for teas and smoothies but I wouldn’t bake with it! Thanks for all your great work!
Thanks for the tip Ellie!
I absolutely hate buying protein bars, but they sure make a quick and easy snack. This recipe looks like the solution to my problem. Will be making them tonight as I prepare for my busy week!
I have to say that these bars look really good and I imagine they taste great too. It’s difficult to find that sometimes with protein bars because companies seem to focus on the protein over the taste. With homemade bars it’s so much easier to make something with great flavor at the same time. Thanks for the recipe.
SO… I made these bars! They tasted pretty good but they didn’t turn out quite right. I think I added much more than a “splash” or almond milk because the mixture seemed really dry and they didn’t harden up in the freezer very well. This could be because I substituted brown rice syrup for the sweetener. Should I have stuck with the maple syrup or did I not stir enough? I want to give them another try :)
I made these bars a few days ago, using hemp protein powder, Nature’s Gate mesa sunrise cereal smashed into smaller pieces, and Naturally Nutty sunflower butter (which is absolutely heavenly). They are absolutely addicting! Thank you for this recipe! These bars are the perfect mid-morning snack!
These sound great! And so easy to make (although… less so if you’re making 500 of them haha ;p).
Thanks for sharing this recipe!
I am always skimming through your recipes and was currently looking for snacks to make for our upcoming flight. Although this recipe sounds amazing, I’m not sure how these would hold up with no refrigeration. But that is besides the point. I’ll make these at one point or another. What caught my eye was that you said Stevia gives you headaches. I purchased some ages ago and only use it in my coffee. I would quite often get this annoying/debilitating head pressure that would ruin my day as hard as I tried not to let it. I figured it was most likely the stevia but didn’t really research too deep into it. Why do you think it does this?
These are amazing!! I could eat the whole batch of them in one sitting!!!
Thank you!!!
THESE ARE AWESOME!!!!!!! Everyone loved them:))) Thanks for sharing!
These are amazing! I didnt have any protein powder so I just grinded up 1/2 cup hemp seeds in my food processor instead. I know its not as much protein but its enough for me! Also instead of drizzling the chocolate, I used cocoa nibs and just mixed them right in! Less sugar that way too :) Keep the fantastic recipes coming!