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Versatile Granola Bars

Easy granola bar recipe that is customizable to what you have on hand and enjoy eating!

Prep Time 17 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Chilling Time 2 hours
Total Time 2 hours 52 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 cups (180g/6.3oz) old-fashioned rolled oats
  • 1 cup nuts, coarsely chopped
  • ¼ cup seeds
  • ¼ cup (½ stick/56g) butter
  • ¼ cup peanut butter, almond butter, tahini, or coconut oil
  • cup (113g/4oz) honey
  • 2 Tablespoons brown sugar or coconut sugar
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (optional)
  • ½ cup dried fruits, coarsely chopped
  • cup chocolate chips

Instructions

  1. Note: Please make sure to read the entire post, which is filled with information and substitutions not mentioned in the recipe itself.

  2. Preheat oven to 350F/180C. In a large bowl, toss together oats, unsalted nuts, and whole seeds for toasting. Spread them in an even layer on a pan lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until golden brown, stirring twice while baking to prevent burning. Scrape mixture back into bowl.

  3. Reduce oven temperature to 300F/150C. Line an 8x8 or 9×9-inch, or similarly sized small rectangular pan with parchment paper, leaving enough overhang on the sides for lifting the bars after baking.

  4. In a medium heatproof bowl, place butter, nut butter (or tahini), honey/maple, and sugar, and heat it in the microwave or in a saucepan over medium heat until butter has melted and mixture is warm. Stir in salt, cinnamon, and vanilla.

  5. Pour butter mixture into oat mixture and toss until evenly moistened. Add dried fruits and chocolate chips, and mix until incorporated (make sure mixture isn’t too warm before adding the chocolate chips or they will melt).

  6. Pour mixture into prepared pan, pressing down evenly and firmly for 1 minute (this will help create less crumbly bars). Bake for 20-25 minutes, depending on the thickness of your bars, until golden brown. The mixture shouldn’t be hard, but rather soft and elastic when lightly pressed. Allow to cool to room temperature, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before cutting into bars. Cold bars are best for cutting. Warm bars may crumble while cutting.

  7. Store bars in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week. For crunchier bars, store them in the fridge. For longer storage, wrap the bars in plastic cling wrap and freeze in airtight containers. Grab and go as needed. The bars will thaw relatively quickly.

Recipe Notes

Double the recipe and use a 9x13-inch pan, although baking time may be longer. Bake until golden brown.

Oats: replace up to ⅓ cup of the oats with ⅓ cup oat flour (simply process oats in a food processor until finely ground) or flour (either all-purpose or whole-wheat). The flour will help everything stick together better and will act as a binder.

Add-ins: This refers to nuts, seeds, dried fruit, chocolate chips, coconut, etc.

You can play with the amount of add-ins (2 – 2 ½ cups total) as much as you like, but make sure to add a nice variety. If you add, for example, just dried fruit, the bars will be too sweet and chewy. Here are a few ideas:

Nuts: Either sliced or whole almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, pistachios, walnuts. Chop them coarsely.

Seeds: Sesame seeds, poppy seeds, flaxseeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds.

Dried fruit: Apricots, figs, apples, cranberries, blueberries, cherries, raisins. There’s no need to chop smaller fruits such as raisins, but do chop the bigger ones.

More: Dark chocolate chips, coconut - either shredded or desiccated, rice cereal, pretzels, wheat germ.

Crispy Bars:

An egg white can replace some of the fat (butter or nut butters) in the recipe (about 2 tablespoons). It will act as a binder and make crispier bars.