These bars have such incredible flavor; you’d never guess they don’t have any sugar and only a smidge of natural sweeteners. With four Super Foods, they pack a nutritional punch and really fill you up between meals. It’s hard to say whether they’re a dessert or a breakfast food!
Ingredients
2 cups almonds (raw or crispy nuts)
½ cup flax meal (flax seeds ground in a blender)
½ cup shredded coconut (unsweetened)
½ cup unsalted almond butter (like peanut butter, made from almonds instead)
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup coconut oil (could probably sub butter here)
1-2 Tbs honey
1 Tbs maple syrup
2-3 teaspoons vanilla extract
a few squares dark chocolate, less than half a bar needed for thin layer
(optional)
- Place almonds, flax meal, shredded coconut, almond butter and salt in a food processor
- Pulse briefly, about 10 seconds
- In a small sauce pan, melt coconut oil over very low heat,
- Remove coconut oil from stove, stir sweeteners and vanilla into oil
- Add coconut oil mixture to food processor and pulse until ingredients form a coarse paste
- Press mixture into an 8 x 8 glass baking dish
- Chill in refrigerator for 1 hour, until mixture hardens
- In a small saucepan, melt chocolate over very low heat, stirring continuously
- Spread melted chocolate over bars; return to refrigerator for 30 minutes, until chocolate hardens
- Remove from refrigerator, cut into bars and serve
Makes 20 bars
Adapted from Elana’s Pantry
UPDATE: I tried this recipe again, absolutely thinking I needed the dark chocolate to make it taste good, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they’re delicious without it!
Be sure to check out the Walnut-Oat Pie crust too, a healthy alternative to graham cracker crusts.
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Other Healthy Recipes you may enjoy:
- Homemade Refried Beans
- Jamaican Meat Marinade
- Homemade dressings with Olive Oil
- Banana Flax Muffins
- Salmon Patties
- Homemade Granola and Granola bars
Hungry for more? Related posts:
Num!! I’m always looking for a good snack bar recipe. I’ll have to give this a try. Although I’ll have to sub out organic peanut butter for almond butter and butter for coconut oil. And sadly – no chocolate in the house! geez – maybe I should just wait it out till I have the proper ingredients!
Tara’s last blog post.."omelets" ~ fast food style
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Katie Reply:
July 2nd, 2009 at 2:54 am
I did have to complete the 1/2 cup almond butter with a bit of peanut butter, and I bet butter instead of c.oil would be just fine – go for it! The chocolate definitely helped, though, you may want to wait for that. Good luck! I visited your blog, too — good stuff!
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Ooh this is good. Healthy snacks are key. Thanks for sharing!
Michelle @ Find Your Balance’s last blog post..You. Need. Fat.
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I also made Elana’s power bars and loved them! They are so great!
Kimi @ The Nourishing Gourmet’s last blog post..“Raw” Berry Freezer Jam (Honey Sweetened)
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These bars are really incredibly delicious. I didn’t have any coconut oil so I used Crisco (no trans-fats, but still not ideal). After reading up on the health benefits of coconut oil, and being generally skeptical of soybean oil, I’m planning on buying coconut oil for the next batch, which will surely be soon.
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Katie Reply:
August 21st, 2009 at 10:46 am
Nice. Crisco no trans fats? I dunno about that. I think Crisco is kind of the epitome of trans fats…let’s look into this. What do the ingredients list? I would always default to butter as the sub for coconut oil if I didn’t have any. Check here for my best price on a gallon of c. oil: http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2009/08/13/a-good-deal-on-top-fats/
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Nourishing Protein Bars – A Great Whole Foods Snack – Passionate Homemaking // Nov 10, 2009 at 5:02 am
[...] my version of a good protein bar that we totally love thanks to Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship for her tweaked almond bar! Let me say that again…it is awesome! A great source of protein and a fun way to get those [...]
Homemade Protein Bars « Catholic Mommy Brain // Nov 18, 2009 at 8:40 pm
[...] a Comment I combined two homemade protein bar recipes shared at Passionate Homemaking and Kitchen Stewardship. Where choices were given, I used flax meal, prunes, peanut butter, and honey. Note that they [...]
Twitter: EatFromPantry
// Feb 5, 2010 at 11:14 pm
We just made these and my husband’s response was, “you have to make these like every day!!”
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