These lightly sweetened and salted homemade granola bars are chewy, delicious and completely customizable. Use your favorite ingredients for an easy and irresistible snack!
How to Make Homemade Granola Bars
- Choose your bar ingredients: First, choose what you want in your granola bars. Use any combo of nuts, seeds and dried fruit you want.
- Combine oats, seeds, nuts, & dried fruit: Mix together all the dry ingredients including oats, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and/or coconut.
- Make the wet binding mixture: Warm the brown rice syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat or in the microwave until it thins into a liquid-y substance. If using peanut butter or almond butter, add it to the syrup before warming. Stir in the vanilla until fully incorporated. If using cocoa powder or any other spices, stir those in as well.
- Combine dry and wet mixtures: Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until well combined and everything is well coated.
- Press the granola mixture into the pan: Prepare an 8×8 baking pan by lining it with parchment paper. Pour the granola mixture into the pan. With a greased large flat spatula or greased hands firmly press the mixture into the pan. Make sure to get into the corners!
- Sprinkle with salt: Before baking, sprinkle the surface of the bars with a coarse or flaky sea salt, like Maldon. I love the teeny bursts of saltiness when biting into a bar as opposed to salt being added the pre-baked mixture
- Bake: Place the bars into a 300 degree oven. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes.
- Cut into bars: Once baked, remove from the oven and let completely cool in the pan. Make sure not to skip this step. The bars will fall apart and crumble if you cut into them when they’re still warm from the oven. Once cooled, remove from the pan and cut into however many bars you’d like.
- Enjoy! Eat them immediately or store in an airtight container to snack on later.
Customizable Ingredients:
Change up the mix ins! Choose ingredients you love to make homemade granola bars that are completely yours. I’ve used all kinds of add ins and generally use up whatever I have in the pantry. For this post I used a combination of cashews, almonds, millet, sesame seeds and pepitas. For the dried fruit I used a combination of dried blueberries and coconut.
- Nuts: Almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, macadamia nuts, peanuts
- Seeds: Pepitas, millet, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, hemp seeds
- Dried Fruit: Cranberries, apples, pineapple, apricots, blueberries, figs, raisins, cherries, coconut
- Brown rice syrup or honey: This is used as a binder and a sweetener. The brown rice syrup will give you a chewier and less sweet tasting granola bar. They honey will give the bars a little more sweetness and will make them a little more firm once cooled from the oven.
- Spices: Stir in baking spices, such as cinnamon, ginger or pumpkin pie spice, into the wet mixture.
- Nut butter: Add peanut butter, almond butter or cashew butter to the binding mixture.
- Chocolate: Add in cocoa powder to the binding mixture or drizzle melted dark chocolate over the cooled cut bars.
If you make these Homemade Granola Bars make sure to leave a comment or give it a rating! And if you’re into taking photos of your food (like me), be sure to give me a tag on Instagram!
5-Ingredient Homemade Granola Bars
- Prep Time: 10 Minutes
- Cook Time: 35 Minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: About 9 Bars 1x
- Category: Snack
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: American
Description
These lightly sweetened and salted homemade granola bars are chewy, delicious and completely customizable. Use your favorite ingredients for an easy and irresistible snack!
Ingredients
2 c. regular old fashioned oats
1 3/4 c. nuts and seeds
3/4 c. dried fruit or coconut
1/2 c. brown rice syrup (or honey)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 c. peanut butter or almond butter or cocoa powder (optional for a firmer bar)
1/2 to 1 tsp. spices like cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, or pumpkin spice (optional spices)
Flaky Sea Salt, such as Maldon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line an 8×8 inch baking pan with parchment paper. In a large bowl, combine the oats, nuts and seeds, and dried fruit. Set aside.
- Warm the brown rice syrup and peanut or almond butter (if using) in the microwave or in a small saucepan over medium heat until warmed and thin. Stir in the vanilla.
- Pour the brown rice syrup over the dry mixture and stir until all the ingredients are completely coated.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Using the back of a spatula or lightly oiled hands firmly press the mixture into the pan until packed and uniformly flattened. Sprinkle the bars with a pinch of flaky sea salt. Bake the bars for 35 to 40 minutes.
- Cool the granola bars completely in the pan. They will firm up as they cool. Once cooled, remove the bars from the pan by lifting them out by the flaps of the parchment paper. Cut into bars. Store in an airtight container.
Keywords: granola bars, homemade granola bars, granola bar recipe, chewy granola bars, snack, oats, brown rice syrup