No Bake Healthy Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola Bars

We are a food-driven family. Over the years, we’ve learned what foods help us to feel + perform our best. And we’ve also learned that when one of us is hangry, everyone suffers.

As a result, you can always find us with healthier alternative snacks packed, a meal plan, or a restaurant reservation. We always know where our next input is coming from!

Carrying snacks that meet our wellness requirements has become an increasingly important value to our family. It also becomes increasingly trickier the older our kids get + the more we have!

With modern marketing in common places like arena snack bars tempting our food-dye-knowledgeable kids, they’re getting increasing *pings* on their attention to garbage “foods”. (If you can even call them that, in my opinion!)

My challenge has been to find or make quick, grab-and-go, unprocessed snacks that help my kids quell their hangry before it ramps up + don’t make them feel like they’re missing out on a treat either. I am always curating recipes that don’t leave me feeling like I’ve filled my kids with useless junk.

This No Bake Healthy Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola Bar is one of my easy fixes for The Snack Bar Dilemma.

We make a batch of these — no perfect measurements necessary! — a few days ahead of the weekend sports mornings, store them in one simple airtight container or Stasher bag in the fridge, then grab the whole thing on the way out the door.

They’re kid-friendly with no cane sugar or flour added. Plus, they’re loaded with healthy fats + protein that keep everyone satisfied.

One of my favorite features of this recipe is these bars are highly customizable. You could make a new variety every week simply by rotating out different base nut butters, mixed-in chopped nuts, and types of chocolate or natural sweetener drizzled over top.

Ingredients in These Organic Chewy Granola Bars

• Nut butter: I prefer to use an all-natural peanut butter (just peanuts + salt). Flavor is abundant in the other ingredients, so a plainer, nut-flavored base is perfect here.
• Honey: If you have manuka or raw honey on hand, use one of those varieties to take advantage of the healing properties + subtle sweetness. Otherwise, the sweeter, more commercial honey (like clover) is fine!
• Flaxseed meal: This is one of my favorite pantry staples. This adds a “nutty” flavor alongside the benefits of vitamins, fiber + protein. If you’re a nursing mom like me, you might enjoy the enhancement of milk production from flaxseed, too!
• Chia seeds: These small-but-mighty sources of protein + fiber help bind the bars’ ingredients together + add to the fullness feeling!
• Oats: A complex carb that gives energy + adds texture to the bars. We used Trader Joe’s “Ancient Grains Rolled Oats” for our first batch of these bars + loved the softer, chewy texture. Typical gluten-free old-fashioned rolled oats work great in this recipe, too. They make the bars a bit sturdier!
• Pecans: These add a warm nuttiness + crunch with some healthy fats! You can substitute with whatever chopped nuts you have on hand, like some toasted almonds, too.
• Unsweetened finely-shredded coconut: Aim for “finely-shredded” for the perfect ingredient-binder + easy-to-chew texture. Otherwise, whatever shred is fine!
• Coconut oil: One of my favorite multipurpose household staples, you’ll need a bit of virgin, unrefined coconut oil to bind the dry ingredients together + for the chocolate drizzle.
• Chocolate: The chocolate drizzle is optional to some, but not to me! Go for dark chocolate baking chunks to steal important minerals — like magnesium, zinc + iron — which can also help keep your brain healthy as you age. Any reason to eat chocolate + help with the brain fog, right?

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How to Make These No-Sugar-Added Granola Bars

1. Mix the wet ingredients. Stir the peanut butter, coconut oil, honey, vanilla + cinnamon in a saucepan over medium heat until the mixture is smooth.
2. Add the dry ingredients. Mix the flaxseed meal, chia seeds + rolled oats in a bowl, then add the mixed dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Next, fold in the pecans (or another nut choice) + the shredded coconut.
3. Choose your pan + line with parchment paper. My first run of this recipe, I used a 9×9 square glass Pyrex pan lined with parchment paper to set the mixture into bars, however, use whatever you have around that size (like an 8×4 inch, etc.). You just want your pan small enough to create a “granola bar thickness”. If you go much bigger in pan size, you’ll end up with floppy “chips” (in which case, keep them in the freezer like you would a frozen yogurt bark!).
4. Set the bars. Press the mixture down evenly on top of the parchment paper. + consider adding a few more sprinkles of chopped nuts or even tiny bite-sized chocolate chips or dye-free candies on top (totally optional!).
5. Melt the chocolate. Add the chocolate chips + coconut oil to a small pan. Heat on low on the stovetop until the chocolate is melted. (Note: You could use the microwave for this in a real pinch for time, but not necessary. The stovetop works quickly + it’s the same amount of cleanup. #teamnomicrowave)
6. Drizzle with chocolate. Pretend you’re a fancy baker + drizzle the bars evenly by dipping the spatula or fork into the heated chocolate + whipping it over top in a diagonal back-and-forth motion.
7. Set again + enjoy. Place pan in the fridge for 25-minutes, then in the freezer for another 10-minutes until hardened. When ready to enjoy, cut into skinny bars + store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 7 days (if they last that long!).

Did you make these granola bars?

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