I have made homemade granola bars in the past but have been quite unsuccessful with them actually sticking together.
These Thick Chewy Granola Bars, which I made a while back, definitely fell apart as evident here.
But I have now discovered the secret!
The secret is that you have to bring the sugars (and a few other ingredients) to a boil and cook off some of the liquid. This concentrates the sugars and allows the ingredients to actually stick together.
Trail Mix Granola Bars
(Recipe inspired from here.)
Ingredients
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup sunflower seed butter
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
2 Tablespoons pumpkin seeds
2 Tablespoons chia seeds
1/2 cup dried fruit (I used cherries and raisins.)
Directions
1. Combine the honey, sunflower seed butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt together in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil on stovetop. Reduce heat, and simmer for 3 minutes; stirring occasionally.
2. In a bowl, combine the oats, coconut, sunflower seeds, pumpking seeds, chia seeds, and dried fruit.
3. Pour honey mixture over oat mixture and stir until full incorporated.
4. Press into a pan and chill in refrigerator for 1 hour.
These are by far my favorite granola bars I have ever made! They are thick, chewy, and incredibly delicious!
Enjoy!
Those homemade granola bars look great! Im impressed 🙂
Good to know! My last bars fell apart all over the place. I’ll have to bookmark these!
Those look fantastic! I just made some granola bars today, but next time we are out I will have to try these! Nothing beats homemade granola bars
good info- can’t wait to try it!
Oh gosh, I am so excited to make these! We are leaving on a road trip tomorrow, so I’m going to make these tonight for sure 🙂
I will be trying these soon as well, but do you think that I could use almond butter instead of the sunflower seed butter?
Most definitely!
I made these this morning and changed them up a bit, as we are leaving on vacation tomorrow from KS to the mountains of CO and I am signed up to run my first ever 10k trail run. I’ve only done a 2m race and 5k’s. Kicking it up a notch and thought these might be great to fuel with the day before and after the race. I used raw peanut butter instead, but next time I will try them with the almond butter. Now to taste them in a couple of hours after a pilates class.