Guess what? I have created a no bake homemade chewy granola bars recipe that is going to knock you off your seats!
I’m telling you.. this recipe is really good. I am a little angry at myself for not creating it sooner. After all, I have been making my own granola for years now to eat with yogurt and fruit. My kids love it, but it seems like they like these granola bars better. Maybe it’s because of the chocolate chips, not sure… either way these are really really delicious.
Have you seen the ingredients on store-bought granola bars? Lots of processed ingredients. But I wanted to make a more healthy granola bar, with real ingredients, and it needed to be kid friendly. This homemade granola bar had to be the soft chewy kind, and had to be easy. Lastly I wanted to make a large quantity so that I could freeze the bars and plop them into my kids lunches.
I played around with the ingredients that I wanted to use and made a few batches until I came up with the prefect concoction. Muwhahaha (that’s my evil scientist laugh). They tasted like heaven. My kids couldn’t get enough! I was worried that I was going to be in a lot of pain from eating so many — I really should have thought twice before inhaling that 8th granola bar. This was the actual thought that went through my head that night. I know, it’s quite sad.
I hope you and your family enjoy these no bake homemade chewy granola bars as much as we did.
No Bake Homemade Chewy Granola Bars
Ingredients:
1/2 cup raw sugar or brown sugar
1 1/2 cups honey (Buy some on Amazon here)
1/3 cup coconut oil (Buy quality Coconut Oil here)
1/4 tsp. fine sea salt (Buy on Amazon here)
1 cup 100% all natural crunchy peanut butter – ( I used the Adams brand)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 cups crisped rice cereal
2 2/3 cups old fashioned oats
2/3 cups ground flax seed
1/2 – 1 cups mini chocolate chips
Method:
In a large bowl, combine your oats, crispy rice cereal, and ground flax seed. Stir with a large spoon until well combined. Set aside.
Measure out sugar, honey, coconut oil, and sea salt and place in a sauce pan over medium heat. Bring it to a boil. Stirring the whole time, boil for exactly 1 minute so mixture combines and sugars dissolve. Take pan off the heat and add in the crunchy peanut butter and vanilla extract. Stir until smooth. Pour this Peanut buttery honey deliciousness over your bowl of oat/crispy rice cereal mixture.
Stir until well combined.
Let this mixture sit and cool for about 5-8 minutes. Meanwhile, grab a large cookie sheet or jelly roll pan (mine is sized at 12½ x 17½ by 1 inch), and some parchment paper. Place cookie sheet on a large piece of parchment paper and trace around the outside of it. Cut it out and place this on the inside of your cookie sheet. It should fit perfectly. This will help later to keep the granola bars in one piece before cutting up. Believe me on this. I tried greasing the pan and it didn’t work.
After the mixture has cooled enough that the mini chocolate chips wont melt upon contact, pour the granola mixture out onto the large cookie sheet.
Spread mixture out evenly.
Next, tear off another large piece of parchment paper and place this over your granola mixture. Take another jelly roll pan or cookie sheet the same size and place it on top of the parchment. Press down. This will help to compact the granola so that the bars will stay together and not fall apart. Little helpers love to do this part.
Remove cookie sheet and parchment, sprinkle mini chocolate chips evenly over the top and repeat the process above, taking the parchment paper and extra cookie sheet and pressing the two together so that the chocolate chips get pressed into the bars.
Remove parchment paper and cookie sheet. If you have fridge space, place cookie sheet in the fridge to finish cooling. If not, it can finish cooling on the counter just as well. Once the bars have cooled completely, slide solidified mixture out of your pan. Yell hallelujah and pat yourself on the back for using parchment paper. Didn’t that make things so much easier? At this point they should look like this….
Now take a cute knife… and yes, the knife has to be cute (don’t ask dumb questions), and cut the bars into the size of your choosing.
Here is a grid to help you see just how I cut mine.
Be prepared to be blown away. I was amazed at just how easy these were to make and how good they tasted. They are so soft and chewy and honestly, I don’t know if I will ever go back to store bought. Not only are my homemade chewy granola bars tastier, they are healthier too. I’d be willing to bet that bar to bar, they are cheaper than store bought.
To Freeze: Wrap each bar in plastic wrap.
Place in a freezer safe zip lock bag and freeze. In the morning, I pull out a bar and put it in my children’s lunches. By lunch hour they have thawed, becoming soft and chewy again.
Below I have added the printable version of this recipe. Enjoy!
no bake homemade chewy granola bars
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup raw sugar or brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups honey
- 1/3 cup coconut oil
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
- 1 cup 100% all natural crunchy peanut butter
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 cups crisp rice cereal I used organic
- 2 2/3 cups old fashioned oats
- 2/3 cups ground flax seed
- 1/2- 1 cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine your oats, crisped rice cereal, and ground flax seed. Stir with a large spoon until well combined. Set aside.
- Measure out sugar, honey, coconut oil, and sea salt and place in a sauce pan over medium heat. Bring it to a boil. Stirring the whole time, boil for exactly 1 minute so mixture combines and sugars dissolve. Take pan off the heat and add in the crunchy peanut butter and vanilla extract. Stir until smooth. Pour this Peanut buttery honey deliciousness over your oat/rice crispy mixture. Stir until well combined.
- Let this mixture sit for about 5-8 minutes. Meanwhile, Grab a large cookie sheet or jelly roll pan sized(mine is sized at 12½ x 17½ by 1 inch), and some parchment paper. Place cookie sheet on a large piece of parchment paper and trace around the outside of it. Cut it out and place this on the inside of your cookie sheet. It should fit perfectly. This will help later to keep the granola bars in one piece before cutting up.
- Next pour out granola bar mixture onto cookie sheet. Press with a second cookie sheet so it is flat. Then immediately spread your chocolate chips on the top and press again.
- Allow to cool. You can add it to your fridge or leave on counter to cool. Once the bars have cooled completely, slide solidified mixture out of your pan. Now take a knife and cut the bars into the size of your choosing. (I cut 5 bars across and 7 bars down making 35 bars total).
Notes
Nutrition
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About Karrie
Food is my love language. But so is saving money. So I like to combine the two a lot and make thrifty make ahead and freeze meals to save time. Because life is busy, and freezer meals can come to the rescue for all of us. And yes, they actually CAN taste good. Read more...
Comments & Reviews
Alice says
Could I use butter instead of coconut oil for tree nut free version?
Alissa says
Is there something else I could use besides coconut oil? My daughter can’t do coconut! Thanks!
Karrie says
You can substitute Sunflower oil or Almond oil, either one of those should work. 🙂
Kime says
I make granola bars quite often. This recipe is a winner! Like your recipe, my original recipe (from a friend) had PB and chocolate, but I like to change things up by substituting ingredients. Almond butter, dried fruit, unsweetened coconut, pumpkin or sunflower seeds… the delicious combinations are endless! Also brown rice syrup works as well as honey. Just don’t change the total dry ingredients and total cooked ingredients. The totals have to be the same or the dry/sticky ratio will be off and the bars will either be too runny or too dry..
One slight difference in our recipes- I cook the sticky mix to 235 degrees ( that’s “Soft Ball” state, like making soft candy). Someone in the comments mentioned that her bars fell apart and this will prevent that from happening. I’m careful not to get it any hotter or the bars won’t be soft and chewy they’ll be more like hard candy.
Monique says
Hey! So I made this so amazing !
Do you happen to know the macros of one bar?
Shelley says
I followed this recipe exactly and I found that it was waaaay too sweet. Next time, I would cut the honey in half and probably omit the sugar completely. I cannot eat more than a few bites of a bar without gagging or needing an entire glass of water to wash it down.
Luckily, I’m an endurance athlete so I’ll most likely cut these into tiny bite-sized pieces to take with me on my distance runs or backpacking trips as a quick hit of sugar … but I may need a ton of water to stomach it.
Amy says
Insubstitute honey for 3/4 maple syrup zero sugar added at all and instead of 2 cups peanut butter I use 1 1/2 cup peanut butter and half a cup of nutella:) not as sweet and the nutella makes up for substituting honey. Honey is extremly sweet and it is used in this recipe as a binding agent to keep oats from falling apart. I find the nutella thickens the mixture ALOT so I use maple syrup instead of honey 1 cup honey = 3/4 syrup ( add sugar but I do not )
Gemma says
Just made these and they are awesome! I love a bit of sweet but not too much. So did not add any sugar and used half the minimum choc chips suggested. Used brown crispy rice cereal (only 1gm sugar) and was enough to make two batches. Still too sweet for me for anything beyond dessert (kids had no complaints) but so yummilicious! Thanks for the post, my 9yo and myself had a great time making them for back to school treats.
Next time I will do the 1 cup honey only and try almond butter for fun variation with 1/4 cup choc chips! Great suggestions for variations above!
Of note, I had tons of costco dried bp from summer needs and used it on one batch. Just mixed up right before putting with honey and worked and tasted great too (compared to crunchy adams).
Judy says
Why do you feel the need to reply so rudely? If you would have ended at – omit sugar completely – it would have been constructive criticism. All of your other rude rambles are unnecessary. Talking of gagging and being able to stomach it completely invalidate your response as someone who just chooses to belittle others.
Iris says
They worked out well but they are a sugar bomb. I didn’t add the sugar and only one cup of honey and they were still very sweet. Next time I’ll use puffed rice as the rice cereal has sugar and even less honey. To make up the volume, I added more sunflower paste (no nuts allowed at school) and maybe next time some tahini as the sunflower paste has sugar in it too.