Ditch the store bought bars and make your own chocolate chip granola bars at home! Your whole family will love these easy chewy homemade snacks.
Granola bars make perfect on-the-go snacks or dessert. These days it feels like I’m always rushing someone from one after school activity to another . . . and everyone is ALWAYS hungry.
Bars are the obvious choice for snacking in the car or between sporting events.
Store bought bars are fine but between the trash generated by those individual wrapping papers and the questionable ingredients list, they’ve never been my favorite.
Homemade granola bars are the answer! These Chocolate Chip Granola bars are nourishing, wholesome and just sweet enough to taste like a treat.
Healthy Granola Bars
When you make your own granola bars, you know exactly what’s going in to them. No weird preservatives or high fructose corn syrup without the expense of a lot of commercial granola bars.
These are made with . . .
- Oats
- Rice Cereal
- Nuts
- Coconut Oil
- Honey
- Peanut Butter
- Molasses
- Vanilla
- Salt
- Chocolate Chips
Another thing I love about these granola bars? They are completely no-bake and take less than half an hour to make!
How to Make Chocolate Chip Granola Bars
- Spread oats on a baking sheet and toast at 325 degrees for about 3 minutes. Remove from oven place in a large bowl.
- Line a 9 x 13” pan with parchment.
- Combine cereal and add-ins in large bowl with the toasted oats.
- In a medium saucepan over low heat, combine oil, honey, peanut butter, and molasses. Stir until well combined. Stir in the vanilla and salt. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 to 10 minutes.
- Once cooled down, pour wet mixture over the dry ingredients and stir until dry ingredients are fully coated. Allow to cool for a few more minutes before folding in chocolate chips.
- Press mixture into prepared pan. Place in fridge for at least one hour.
- Cut into bars or squares and enjoy!
Substitutions
This recipe for homemade granola bars makes a fantastic canvas for so many fun variations.
- Try peanut butter morsels instead of chocolate chips, or a blend of both.
- Chopped almonds, cashews or walnuts would also taste delicious as an alternative to the peanuts in the recipe!
- Feel free to experiment with other additions like dried cranberries, raisins and apricots here.
These bars are perfectly chewy, sweet and a bit salty. Fans of salty-sweet snacks LOVE my chocolate chip granola bars!
My peanut butter loving friends always give my Peanut Butter Granola Bars rave reviews, too.
How to Store
These bars store wonderfully at room temperature if kept in an airtight containers. They’ll taste fresh for about 1 week after making them but in my house they tend to disappear long before!
Pop them in a tupper ware or ziploc bag for lunch boxes, backpacks and purses so you’re never without a tasty snack.
When blood sugar levels start to dip, a chocolate chip granola will take the edge off in no time.
In fact, I like these bars so much I’ve even been known to eat one for dessert after dinner. (Only if no Rice Krispie Treats are available, of course.)
Make these for your next road trip, hike or camping adventure to keep hunger at bay!
Can you freeze homemade granola bars?
Of course you can!
To freeze the granola bars: first cut them into individual rectangles or squares. Then, wrap each bar in parchment or wax paper before placing in a freezer safe ziploc bag or container. Thaw for a few hours at room temperature before serving.
I love this hack for packing granola bars in lunch boxes: Put a frozen bar in your kid’s lunch in the morning and it’ll be ready to enjoy by lunchtime. . . while keeping other lunchbox items cold!
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Can you make these Gluten Free
Check your oats and cereal and be sure to choose ones that are gluten free and/or made in a plant that is gluten free.
There are times when I still rely on store bought snacks but I try to keep a batch of these bars ready to go as often as I can!
They take so little time and effort to make, you’ll wonder why you didn’t start making healthy granola bars years ago. There’s nothing like a little chocolate fix in your afternoon snack to boost your mood!
More Easy Snacks
- White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
- Cheesecake Dip
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie
- Puppy Chow Recipe
- Indoor S’mores
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Chocolate Chip Granola Bars
Ingredients
- 3 cups quick oats
- 1 cup puffed rice cereal
- 1 cup add-ins of choice: nuts seeds, coconut flakes, etc
- ½ cup coconut oil
- ½ cup honey
- ½ cup peanut butter
- 1 tablespoon molasses
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- Spread oats on a baking sheet and toast at 325 degrees for about 3 minutes. Remove from oven place in a large bowl.
- Line a 9 x 13” pan with parchment.
- Combine cereal and add-ins in large bowl with the toasted oats.
- In a medium saucepan over low heat, combine oil, honey, peanut butter, and molasses. Stir until well combined. Stir in the vanilla and salt. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 to 10 minutes.
- Once cooled down, pour wet mixture over the dry ingredients and stir until dry ingredients are fully coated. Allow to cool for a few more minutes before folding in chocolate chips.
- Press mixture into prepared pan. Place in fridge for at least one hour.
- Cut into bars or squares and enjoy!
Notes
- You could replace the honey with maple syrup to make these vegan, however bars will be somewhat crumbly. Reducing the cereal and add-ins to ¾ cup each may help these be less crumbly.
- Rice Krispies work great for the puffed rice cereal component, but any puffed grain – or really any dry cereal at all – works just fine here.
Nutrition
Once you try homemade chocolate chip granola bars, you’ll be ready to ditch store bought bars forever. I can’t wait for you to try this recipe!
Looking for healthy breakfast cereals? Discover the wonders of Ezekiel Cereal; its quick, easy and healthy. Read and be completely informed.
http://ezekielcereal.com/
Featuring YOU over on my blog today! 🙂 Looks so yummy!
Ginger @ gingersnapcrafts.com
http://www.gingersnapcrafts.com/2011/09/back-to-school-link-party-features_26.html
Looks delicious! My kind of snack!
I’m curious how long they stay fresh and how you store them.
definitely making these!! I have been buying to chewy ones and eating like half a box a day… not a good habit but who has time to eat real food w/ a newborn around?! 🙂 Thanks for the recipe!!
thanks for this recipe! such an easy, portable and yummy snack!
Wow these look SO YUMMY and cheaper than buying the prepackaged stuff! Awesome job.
Emily
Deviantly Domesticated Team
http://stephaniehillberry.com
These look wonderful, too. You’ve got some great recipes!
Cute blog. I found you from 33’s Tasty Tuesday. I’m a follower. I’ve been looking for a granola bar recipe to fall on my lap and here it is! Thanks!
oh WOW!!! I love this recipe * * I am seriously gonna make these 😀 thanks for sharing!
I’ll have to make these with my homemade granola! Thanks for posting it!
I’m with you. I hate processed children’s snacks and these look delish! Thanks for sharing the recipe.
I make these too! They are so good. We don’t use the pretzels but add almonds and coconut.
I always wanted to make my own granola bars..thanks a lot.My son will be very happy with this.
This week on THIS WEEK’S CRAVINGS we are looking for “brunch recipes”. We’d love for you to come link up this tasty looking recipe!
http://momscrazycooking.blogspot.com/2011/05/this-weeks-cravings-28-brunch-recipes.html
Miranda, thanks so much!! Get that granola so you can make it, you won’t be disappointed!
I liked these so much, they are the featured recipe this week! Thanks for linking up to FCF! As soon as I get some granola, I am making these!
Hi Aimee,
Your Granola Bar looks awesome. I just love having a healthy grab and go bar on hand in my pantry and your recipe looks great. Thank you so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday and hope to see you next week!
Well how about that! My little girl loves those Quaker chewy granola bars. I’ll have to try out this recipe – god to know exactly what you are getting! Thanks for linking this up to Fat Camp Fridays this week! See you next week!
And by making your own granola bars or cookies, etc… you know what they are putting into their growing bodies.
Thanks for your recipe to try, can’t wait to see what the little judges think.