Happy Monday, friends! 😀
Don’t believe me? How about now… ?
Still no, eh? Tough crowd. I know, I know – Mondays can be a little rough. That’s why I spent part [10 minutes] of my weekend baking up some treats to share with you guys… And by baking I mean throwing a few ingredients in a bowl, mixing them together, tossing the mixture into the fridge, and calling it good. So… no-baking, I guess? I mean, sure, there was some minor stove work involved…
… but let’s not get caught up in petty details – let’s talk about the finished product instead.
Snack/protein/energy bars. Everyone loves them. They’re quick, they’re easy, they’re convenient, and with the proper ingredients, they’re pretty healthy and satisfying too. They’re also the bane of my existence. Why? Two words – peanut.allergy. Almost every single commercial bar out there is either loaded with peanuts or may contain traces of the pesky buggers; and most of the peanut-free versions leave a little something to be desired in terms of staying power. But that’s what weekend afternoon baking sessions are for, right?
If these bars look a little familiar, it’s because they were completely inspired by my Rice Krispie Energy Bites. I loved the flavour of those so much that I wanted to recreate them – only this time with a different texture. So, I swapped out the cereal for oat flour and was rewarded with a softer, denser, and fudgier bar.
I also threw in regular oats and crispy rice cereal to add some texture and crunch; and chocolate because… well… who really needs a reason for chocolate?
The result is, in a word, phenomenal. Imagine a subtly sweet bar that’s packed with flavour and wholesome ingredients. A bar that’s soft and fudgy enough to melt in your mouth, yet dense and textured enough to surprise you with the occasional crunch. A bar that satisfies not only your body, but your soul as well. Deep. Now stop imaging and go whip up a batch! It only takes all of 10 minutes!
I’d love to know if you make this (or any!) recipe! Tag @runwithspoons on Instagram and Twitter, and be sure to subscribe to our mailing list to receive more healthy and delicious recipes straight to your inbox!
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No-Bake Almond Fudge Protein Bars
- Total Time: 10 mins
- Yield: 12 bars 1x
Ingredients
- 1 cup oats, ground into a flour
- 1/2 cup quick oats
- 1/3 cup vanilla protein powder (I used whey)
- 1/2 cup crispy rice cereal
- 1/2 cup almond butter (or peanut butter)
- 1/3 cup honey
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- Optional: 2-3 Tbsp. chocolate chips for melting
Instructions
- Prepare a 9×5 loaf pan by spraying it with cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine oat flour, quick oats, protein powder, and crispy rice cereal. Mix until well combined and set aside.
- In a small pan over medium heat, add almond butter and honey, stirring until the almond butter is melted and fully combined with the honey. Stir in vanilla extract.
- Remove from heat and pour into the dry mixture. Stir until everything is fully combined.
- Pour into prepared loaf pan. Using a spatula or your hands, spread the mixture evenly in the pan, pressing down firmly.*
- Optional: place chocolate into a microwave safe bowl and nuke on high in 20 second intervals, mixing between each. When chocolate is fully melted, drizzle over the top of the packed mix using a spoon.
- Place pan into fridge and allow to cool for ~30 minutes before cutting into bars.
Notes
* make sure to press the mixture into the pan very firmly or the bars may fall apart.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
I have to say that for being ridiculously easy to make, these guys are also ridiculously difficult to resist. Photographing them was probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in a while, and it’s a miracle that I had anything left to showcase at all with the amount of snacking that went on behind the scenes. You guys know what I’m talking about… uneven edges, broken pieces, crumbs… a nibble here, a tiny sliver there. Oi. At this rate, I’ll be whipping up another batch very, very soon.
Happy Monday! 😀
I am going camping for a few days and won’t have a refrigerator. Do you think these will stay at room temperature for a few days or fall apart because they aren’t refrigerated?
These were so delicious! I made them with Almond Flour instead of oats ground into a flour. Did use the 1/2 cup oats as well. Would love a calorie count.
I’m so glad you liked them, Wendy! I don’t calculate the nutritional info for my recipes, and it would be especially hard to guess since you changed some of the ingredients. But you can use a calculator like this one to figure out the specifics — http://www.myfitnesspal.com/recipe/calculator
I made these to feed a 13 year old girl who is 118 lbs. and 6’0″. Her coaches want her to eat lots, and these bars were devoured in 1 sitting! Everyone in the house loved them, making another pan as I type this.
I doubled the recipe & pressed it into an 8×8 pan.
Thank you!
These look amazing! I assume I can essentially substitute the oat flour with almond flour? Or do the oats do/give something almond flour won’t in terms of texture or flavour?
You should be able to sub out the oat flour with almond flour no problem, Aina!
Any idea on a general price range for a batch of these protein bars? I know it is tough to guesstimate due to buying a lot of these ingredients in bulk.
Wondered f you know the approximate nutritional properties of these bars?
Hi Stephanie! If memory serves me, they each have around 135 calories, 6g protein, 4g fat, and 19g carbs — based on 12 servings without the chocolate topping.
These are gonna be my new jam. They turned out way better than I expected. Extremely yummy and protein packed. Just enough crunch!
I tried your recipe today. My almond-honey mixture looked darker though. I love the recipe it is so delicious and so healthy. Do you think the heating is necessary? I would like to use raw almond butter next time and avoid heating to keep more vitamins.
It’s not absolutely necessary, it just makes things a little bit easier to mix. If your nut butter and honey is easy enough to work with without heating, then you can definitely skip that step!
Do you have to keep these in the fridge?
Not necessarily. They’re a little bit firmer when kept in the fridge, but they’re fine at room temperature as well. It just depends on what kind of texture you like.
Made these according to directions….and were too crumbly to use or eat.
Very dry tasting as well ……was hoping to take them on a trip…..too bad.
How do I calculate or do you have the calories/protein/sugars per serving?
This look really delicious. I really want to try and make it although I am not very good with my hands. Thanks for sharing.
OHMYGOSH, can I say how much I LOVE these????
When I learned about how much processed junk is in the store bought “protein bars”, I searched high and low for the perfect recipe for protein bars and this is it!!!! I can to remake them a couple times (trial and error) but I’ve gotten the hang of them that I bake them every weekend.
I use vanilla whey instead but it still came out perfect! And I MAY have covered the whole pan with chocolate 😉 These are perfect for a quick snack or a sweet treat!!
I made these and couldn’t find out what to add to make them stick together more. They didn’t quite come together. I added more pb, and some nutella (which made them overly sweet), but I finally just shaped them into balls. Is there anything less fatty that could help them come together?
I found this recipe looking for DIY bars just because store bought are too expensive. I normally don’t eat breakfast, because it takes me too long in the morning. These are perfect and a fraction of the cost of Cliffs bars.
These worked great! I think an issue many above had with a dry dough, is that their mixing bowl was too deep, leaving a mound to try to incorporate with the AB/PB & honey. A shallower wider bowl, and making sure the melted wet ingredients are poured all over the dry instead of in one place helps. ( I cooked for a living for 20 years, the right tools help)
But many of the additions above that solved their problems also sound great just for taste which I’m going to try!
Thanks for the great recipe.
Update: for the second batch, I pureed 1.5 very ripe bananas and added them at the end. Remarkable transformation! Held them together structurally and made them significantly more delicious (if a little sticky).
I was also excited by this but found it too dry and crumbly 🙁 I hoped sitting overnight in the pan would have helped but in cutting them up they started falling apart. Recipe needs some tweaking but is a good start.
I have a real problem with this recipe. It’s too delicious!!! I ate half the batch in one day and polished off the rest the next. That was NOT the plan at all. I won’t be able to make this regularly, because I can’t control myself! It tastes like a “real” dessert. What I need is a healthy dessert that’s just good enough to satisfy my sweet tooth, but not so addictive that I go crazy. Next time I ‘ll try reducing the honey. That may be the culprit. I haven’t eaten sugar for a while, so the sweetness was irresistible. As a backup plan I’ll keep them in the freezer and just thaw one at a time. Maybe that’ll work…
I also found the dough very dry, so much that I wasn’t able to combine it by hand. I threw it all back into the food processor to mix, which did the trick. And then you definitely have to push it down hard in the pan. I pushed both sides at once, because if you only push in one spot it climbs up the other side. Worked out great and no problems cutting into bars.
Thank you for the wonderful recipe, Amanda! Totally in love and I’m going to explore more of your creations.
Like the previous poster (Tiff), I also found the mixture a bit dry, perhaps because I used crunchy peanut butter and added cocoa powder directly with the flour. So I added half a mashed banana and the dough got dough-y just fine 🙂 Cut into heavenly squares which will definitely not last too long in my fridge!
Cheers
Help! I just made these but they were really dry. I actually couldn’t use all the oat flour and had to add another tbsp peanut butter.
What have I done wrong?!
The flavour is amazing but they’re too dry. I’m using natural peanut butter and it’s crunchy will that make a difference?
Thanks so much.
Tiff
I love love love this recipe! I linked to it on my blog. You rock!