The alternate title for these bars was: ultra dense, doughy, chewy, soft, seedy, hearty, protein-and-fibre-packed granola bars, sweetened naturally with dates!
I can be a bit wordy at times. Anyway, these are not your average granola bars! Bursting with chia, sunflower, and pepita seeds, they pack a hefty amount of protein, fibre, and omega fatty acids and are naturally sweetened with date paste (a simple blend of water and pitted dates) instead of sugar. I like to think of these as an “adult” granola bar or a muesli breakfast bar of sorts, although I could also see my hockey-loving nephews enjoying these as fuel for the game. For those with nut allergies, you’ll be happy to know these are totally nut-free, just like my Super Power Chia Bread which this recipe is adapted from. If you’ve enjoyed the Super Power Chia Bread, the texture of these granola bars is the same – very soft and like an ultra dense, doughy bread.
I didn’t feel like calling them “chia bread” though due to the sweetness; granola bars just seemed to make more sense in my brain. I also debated calling these “energy bars” because they are packed with so many good-for-you ingredients and I’ve been enjoying them after exercise for a little pick me up. As you can see, deciding on a title is not my strong point! Whatever you call them, I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.
Featuring all new, protein-packed salads, hearty toppers, flavour boosters, and dressings you'll want to drink, my new cookbook will transform the way you think about salads. Oh, and be sure to flip to the back for a surprise dessert chapter!
Soft + Chewy Baked Granola Bars
Yield
10-12 bars
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Dense, chewy, soft, doughy, seedy, hearty, protein-and-fibre-packed granola bars, sweetened naturally with dates! Try them spread with nut or seed butter for a fun treat or just enjoy them plain. Adapted from my Super Power Chia Bread.
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup gluten-free rolled oats, ground into a flour
- 1 cup water
- 3/4 cup packed pitted Medjool dates
- 1/2 cup chia seeds
- 1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds
- 1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds
- 1/4 cup dried cranberries, finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
Directions
- Preheat oven to 325°F and line a 9-inch square pan with two pieces of parchment paper, one going each way.
- Add rolled oats into a high-speed blender. Blend on highest speed until a fine flour forms. Add oat flour into a large bowl.
- Add water and pitted dates into blender. Allow the dates to soak for 30 minutes if they are a bit firm or your blender has a hard time blending dates smooth. Once they are soft, blend the dates and water until super smooth.
- Add all of the ingredients into the bowl with the oat flour and stir well until combined.
- Scoop the mixture into the pan and spread it out with a spatula as evenly as possible. You can use lightly wet hands to smooth it down if necessary.
- Bake at 325°F for about 23-25 minutes, or until firm to the touch. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then lift it out and transfer it to a cooling rack for another 5-10 minutes. Slice and enjoy!
- I suggest freezing leftovers to preserve freshness.
Nutrition Information
(click to expand)
Cookbook Newsletter Info
I have a fun giveaway coming up for my Cookbook Newsletter subscribers very soon! I just wanted to let you know in case you were meaning to subscribe and hadn’t done so. I will be randomly drawing a fun prize pack for one lucky confirmed subscriber. I’ll also be giving some info on a special bonus recipe bundle I have coming soon. You can subscribe at the bottom of this page. Don’t forget to confirm your subscription to get the emails.
Hi Angela! Do you think I could subsitute almonds or walnuts for the sunflower and pepita seeds? I don’t like those very much. But I love almonds :)
I think it’s my first time commenting but I’m a long-time reader.
Take care!
Hey Marie,
Yes, I totally think you can change up the seeds and nuts as you see fit! Almonds and walnuts sound great to me. Thanks for reading.
Yummy! Could I use prunes instead? I can’t eat dates. Thank you☺
All that goodness in one bar,yesss ma’am!!
Can’t wait to make these–today! And stock pile them before this baby is born (any day) so I have a healthy snack to reach for when I won’t have time to cook. You are always an inspiration :)
Just curious, I always see that you use gluten free oats, ground into flour. I desperately want a vitamix, but don’t have one yet! Is there a reason why you grind your own oats into flour instead of buying gluten-free oat flour (which is what I’ve been doing)??
I’m wondering if maybe in the processing something happens that I don’t know about. Thanks!
Hi Keri, You can use either store-bought oat flour or grind you own – I just grind my own because it’s so easy in the Vitamix and I can’t be bothered to store both rolled oats and oat flour. ;) Generally, 1 cup rolled oats makes about 1 cup oat flour so you can swap 1:1.
Congrats on your baby-to-be! So excited for you.
Thanks-both for the congrats & oat flour wisdom :)
Do you use the dry blade container or the stock container?
I use a dry container now that I have one, but I used the wet container for years before that. To be honest I find the wet container seems to work better for grinding flour. Maybe it’s just me though!
That’s great to hear! I was considering purchasing the dry blade container but I was hesitant because of price and thinking I would not get much use of it. Now I know for sure I won’t have much use for it. Thanks!
You don’t need a vitamix to grind oats into flour. I use my kitchen aid food processor and it works just fine!!
Though, I too, want a vitamix someday!! :)
Hmmm…will have to see if our trusty, albeit OLD cuisinart can handle it!
I’ve used my coffee grinder to make oat flour and it worked great :)
I just use my blender to grind oats into flour. I will be making these soon, they will be perfect for a 10 day road trip that I will be making soon! Thank you so much. It’s so stressful to travel when you have an extremely limited diet.
I have a Magic Bullet and either blade works great to grind oats.
You can always use a coffee grinder! it works just as well in my opinion :) -congrats!
these look amazing, angela! i love all of the super healthy ingredients and that they don’t even have maple or brown rice syrup to hold them together! grown-up granola bars for sure ;)
These look scrumptious! I’ve come up with a few of my own sugar free granola/protein bar recipes, but they definitely taste unsweetened. I don’t use a lot of dates in my cooking, but I think that’s the missing ‘oomph.’ Can’t wait to try these!
It looks super appetizingly. And it is dangerous to me because I won’t be able precisely to stop on one bar ;)
Thanks for the great recipe.
Did you think i cound subsitute the oats with some 100% gluten free flour maybe rice flour? Because somethimes the oats are not “clean” and gluten free -.-
thanks Fräulein K.
I think a variety of flours would work – if you check the comments in the original chia bread recipe some people suggested some that worked. good luck!
You might try almond flour instead, if you eat nuts.
Just looking at the picture makes me hungry! They look so chewy and delicious – can’t wait to try it – Thanks!
These look so hearty and healthy! Definitely better than regular ol’ Quaker granola bars!
You call ’em what you want, girlie. I’ll likely call them delicious! Anything with dates and I’m in!
These look wonderful! Dates are the perfect sweetener. Would it work to substitute whole wheat flour instead of oat? I’m assuming wheat is denser so I wasn’t sure…
Do you have the nutritional stats on these?
I love how the date paste is pouring into the bowl, and since I am laying off the sugar these are perfect.
Oh looooooordy these sound amazing! I’m a huge sucker for anything that contains the pumkpkin seed and cranberry combo, and I’m pretty sure that given the chance, I could demolish an entire batch! :) Great recipe, and gorgeous photos as always!
I’m going to give these a try. I have made several bars in the past with date paste and they never seem to firm up enough. They are always really crumbly. I have high hopes for these. If you have any tips that helped you get a bar that doesn’t fall apart, I’d definitely appreciate them!
I find that if I cut up the add ins into small pieces (smaller the better) they seem to hold together. I hope that helps you.
Hey Carry! These tricks will help:
1. Add nut butter.
2. Grind the chia seeds and soak in water before mixing into the rest of the ingredients. Chia absorbs 15x its weight in water and acts as a binder in foods the same ways egg does. If you don’t have a way to grind the chia seeds, try soaking them whole before adding.
3. Use ground flaxseed meal instead of the ground chia, if desired: whisk or blend 1Tbs ground flaxseed with 3Tbs water and let soak until the mixture is thick and congealed. This is called a “flax egg” and I use it in most of my baked goods. You can always add an extra “egg” if it looks like you need it.
Goodness me, these look good! And certainly much healthier than most energy bars out there…
They look delicious, although they aren’t sugar-free. There’s sugar in added fruit and even, in oats (different kind of sugar, though). They are ‘no added sugar’ or perhaps ‘sucrose-free’. Sorry, don’t mean to be food label nitpicker :)
I completely agree! And if they’re Craisins there’s a ridiculous amount of added sugar in there.
Yea, I was going to say the same thing. There’s tons of sugar in these! You would need to say so to a diabetic, if they didn’t see the ingredients list. It could really hurt somebody if they were sugar-sensitive. It’s just “no added sugar.” For future recipes (I’m directing this at the author of the original post, not the above comment), I would look up the wiki for sugar (I don’t mean that condescendingly, but kindly) just so you understand what kind of sugars there are, what they’re in, etc. It’s very important.
Thanks for your feedback ladies! Perhaps sweetened naturally would have been a better choice of words. What I was referring to was no added sugars like granulated sugar or liquids. Either way, I’ve removed sugar-free from the title to avoid confusion. Hope this helps!
Totally gotcha. Thank you for taking it into account. Just to add positivity to the criticism: this looks amazing, I can’t wait to try it; thanks for the recipe.
No prob :) Let me know how it goes if you try them out.
You can find sugar free dried fruit, FYI. Cranberries, blueberries, figs, apricots, etc.
Hello Angela,
I discovered your blog recently and I LOVE it, even if I am not a strict vegetarian/vegan. I even translated one of your recipe for my french reader (the peanut-Thai burger -AMAZING-) and I pre-ordered your book, and can’t wait to read it!
Thank you so much for sharing all your hard work with us :)
That being said, I wanted to know if you think we could substitute dates with sun-dried bananas (rehydrated). I always have the impulse to do it in the recipes involving puréed dates but I never had the nerves to try it. What do you think?
Thank you. xxx
Hey Alice, Thanks for your kind words. I’m so happy you are enjoying the blog and thank you for pre-ordering the book! A banana version of this certainly sounds intriguing! Would you be subbing 3/4 cup rehydrated banana and blending it with the water? If so that should work, although it wouldn’t be as sweet. let me know how it goes if you try it!
Hi Angela, thank you for answering.
I tried it this morning (I couldn’t wait) and I put 1 sliced dried banana and completed the 3/4 cup with dates (about 5). I also used infused ginger tea instead of plain water. It turned out good, sweet enough with a slight banana-ginger taste :) I might try with 2 bananas next time.
I also did with what I had in my pantry, almond instead of sunflower seeds and brown rice flour instead of oats, and the texture turned out perfect :)
Thank you for this wonderful recipe :)
You are a genius!! That is all!
Hi Angela!! Huge fan of your food. Wondering if you can replace the oats with coconut flour? Thanks for your input & thoughts!!!
Great work, keep at it, you’re doing a great job :)
I haven’t tried any other flours yet, but I imagine a wide variety would work. I would worry that using all coconut flour would be too drying though (it’s so dense and sucks up a ton of moisture). Maybe a combo of that and something else like rice or almond flour? Let me know what you try out!