Healthy Protein Snack Bars
on Sep 29, 2021
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You’ll love these super easy no bake healthy snack bars made with peanut butter, oats, coconut, flax seed and more! They are packed with healthy fiber, fat, and protein and you won’t believe that they taste like a treat.
Need more easy and healthy snacks in your life? These are just what you’ve been looking for.
Table of Contents
Healthy Snack Bars
Here’s what you are going to love about these little bites of snacking delight:
- They are made with all kinds of wholesome whole food ingredients like nut butter, oatmeal, chia seeds, flax seed meal, and coconut.
- They are no bake and come together in just a few minutes.
- They store great and make the best simple and easy snack or dessert for when you need a little something sweet and filling.
- They are easy to adjust to your tastes, preferences, and what you have on hand.
Make these today and you will not regret it!
Today I’m working with Bob’s Red Mill! If you didn’t know, I’ve been working with them on bringing you recipes for 3 years now. I buy their products regularly; I love this company and all that they do and sell. Thanks for enjoying a recipe they help make possible.
Ingredients needed in healthy snack bars:
- Peanut Butter: use the natural drippy kind that’s made with just peanuts and salt. It mixes together great and helps everything to stick together.
- Honey: this is what makes the recipe sweet. We just harvest our honey (15 gallons!!) and I love using the raw honey to sweeten things. Shop local for honey if you can!
- Protein Powder: lots of options here, Bob’s Red Mill has a new almond protein powder that I’m excited to try. I’ve also used their pea protein for this as well as collagen peptides. You can use vanilla or unsweetened, or feel free to try anything else you like or have.
- Flax Seed Meal: this stuff is packed with protein and fiber and I love it. This is ground flax seed, called flax meal.
- Chia Seeds: these little seeds are packed with all kind of nutrition too and they are great at helping your bars stick together.
- Quick Cooking Oats: I love the complex carbohydrates these add and quick cooking oats have the best texture for this recipe.
- Shredded Coconut: this add a little texture. Look for unsweetened.
Substitutions for this recipe:
- If peanut butter is an issue feel free to sub it for any other nut or seed butter as long as it’s a natural drippy nut butter that has a similar texture as peanut butter. Sun butter would also work well here.
- You can sub maple syrup, agave, or brown rice syrup for the honey if you’d like. If using one of these consider adding 1/4 cup more oats to help absorb some of the liquid from the thinner sweeteners.
- You can use whatever protein powder you like or have on hand. Bob’s Red Mill has some good ones if you are looking for them. I generally go for unsweetened and unflavored, but I bet a vanilla protein powder would be amazing here.
- You can change around the chia seeds and flax meal if you like, but they both help this recipe stick together. You can replace them with something like hemp seed hearts but add more oats to help things stick together.
- Don’t want to add the oats? You can leave them out and replace them with coconut.
- Don’t love coconut flakes? Replace them with more oats.
- I am happy to help you make substitutions, just leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.
Frequently asked questions:
I think it’s the ones that you’ll eat! LOL, if you don’t like them, they don’t taste good, or you can’t read the ingredients, why buy them? That’s the perk of making your own, you can pick what you like, adjust the flavors to your preferences, and make them with things you love!
For this recipe, yes! These aren’t traditional “protein bars” and it’s A-OK to eat what your body says is a good amount in a day. My kids love these and I love these for a little snack in the afternoon or when I get the munchies in the evening. The serving size for this recipe is actually to “bars” or small squares, so by all means, eat two!
This feels like choosing a favorite child! BUT there are some that I use a ton and here’s my quick list. I buy their organic all purpose flour in 25 pound bags (it’s the best for sourdough bread!). I love all of their oats, they have a great medium grind cornmeal, their unsweetened coconut (flakes and shredded) are so good, and their oatmeal cups are my favorite breakfast to throw in my bag while traveling. I basically love everything they do though 🙂
More healthy snack recipes:
- Healthy Homemade Snack Bars Recipe (like a homemade Lara bar)
- After School Snack Tray
- Healthy Homemade Granola Bars
- 10 Healthy Make-Ahead Snacks
- Easy & Healthy Banana Muffins Made in the Blender
If you’ve tried this homemade snack bar recipe or any other recipe on Bless this Mess, then don’t forget to rate the recipe and leave me a comment below! I would love to hear about your experience making it. And if you snapped some pictures of it, share it with me on Instagram so I can repost on my stories AND add your photo to your comment so that other can see your creation.
Healthy Protein Snack Bars
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/2 cup natural drippy peanut butter
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
- 1/3 cup protein powder, or collagen peptides
- 1/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill ground flaxseed meal
- 1/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill chia seeds
- 1/3 cup Bob’s Red Mill unsweetened shredded coconut
- 1/3 cup Bob’s Red Mill quick cooking oats
- 1/3 cup chocolate chips + 1 teaspoon coconut oil
- a sprinkle of coarse sea salt, optional
Instructions
- Line an 8×8 inch baking dish with parchment or waxed paper. Leave some over hang with the paper on each side of the pan so that it’s easy to pull the bars out of the pan later. Set the pan aside.
- In a medium mixing bowl add the honey, peanut butter, and coconut oil and stir to combine.
- Add the protein powder, flax meal, chia seeds, shredded coconut, and oats.
- Stir to combine.
- Place the peanut butter mixture into the prepared pan and press it into the bottom of the pan.
- Melt the chocolate chips and the coconut oil together (microwave and stove top both work for this) and then spread the melted chocolate over the peanut butter layer
- Sprinkle the melted chocolate with a little coarse sea salt if you’d like (optional).
- Place the bars in the fridge until they are firm, about 1 hour.
- Remove from the pan and place on a cutting board. Cut into 16 snack bars. Store bars in the fridge.
Notes
- If you are leaving out the oats, reduce the coconut oil to 1 tablespoon.
- These have a better texture and store the best if kept in the fridge.
- See post for details on substitutions for this recipes. It’s very flexible!
- You can make these bars in a 9×5 bread pan if you’d like the bars to be thicker, it works great.
Nutrition
More recipes I’ve made for Bob’s Red Mill that you’ll love:
- Gluten Free Pizza Recipe
- Gluten Free Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies Bars
- Sweet Potato Cassava Tortillas
- One Bowl Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cake
- Gingerbread Cake
- Carrot Cake Roll
- Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins
- How to Make Overnight Oats – 5 Easy Recipes!
- Family Friendly Cheese Board
Disclosure: Today’s post is sponsored by Bob’s Red Mill, a company I LOVE and use in my kitchen daily. Thank you for supporting the brands that I choose to work with.
These little bites of snacking perfection are easy to make, full of wholesome ingredients from Bob’s Red Mill (my favorite!), and are so delicious. The whole family is going to love these healthy snacks bars.
Delish! I didn’t have the flax meal so I used almond flour per the internet. My husband likes them too. Bonus: easy to
Make!
Great tip! Thank you for taking the time to let us know what worked!
Just made this today for an outdoor snack and it was a hit with the kids and adults!!! Definitely saving this recipe for future use. I didn’t have any coconut flakes on hand (not a hug coconut fan) and the recipe still tasted great without!
I like this smaller size batch. It’s so delicious that I have a hard time controlling myself.