Homemade Nut-Free Chocolate Granola Bars
These nut-free granola bars are the perfect salty sweet snack for a child’s school lunch. They are completely free from nuts, dairy, and gluten. And you can make them in 15 minutes.
Granola bars are a nice balance of sweet and chewy goodness wrapped up in an easy-to-carry bar that even a preschooler can handle with ease.
The recipe makes 14 healthy, whole foods, nut-free chocolate granola bars. They will last in the fridge for two weeks.
Making your own granola bars means you know exactly what’s in them. We love that these are a healthy alternative to the store-bought variety with questionable ingredients and preservatives.
Ingredients
- 2 cups rolled oats
- 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
- 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
- 1 ½ cups unsweetened puffed quinoa rice, millet, quinoa etc.
- ½ cup dried fruit raisins, dates, figs, prunes, cranberries, goji berries, roughly chopped
- ¼ tsp. sea salt
- 1 ½ Tbsp. cacao powder
- 1/2 cup brown rice syrup or honey
- 3 Tbsp. maple syrup
- ½ cup tahini or nut butter
- 2 Tbsp. coconut oil
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F/160°C.
- Combine oats, sunflower seeds and shredded coconut on a baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes, stirring once or twice, until the oats are golden and have a nutty aroma.
- In a small saucepan combine the honey, maple syrup, tahini, coconut oil, vanilla. Whisk to combine. Do not overheat.
- In a large bowl, combine the cooled oats, sunflower seeds and shredded coconut with the chopped dried fruit, puffed quinoa, salt, and cacao powder.
- Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir quickly to mix.
- Pour the mix into a brownie pan (9×12) lined with parchment baking paper. Press the mixture firmly, especially into the corners.
- Place in the freezer for twenty minutes or the fridge for a couple hours to firm up, then remove from fridge and slice into bars. Keep leftovers in the fridge for up two weeks.
