These days, a lot of us are making our own homemade muesli bars, protein balls and healthy snacks. There is an endless list of ingredients you can combine to create your own super-food bar and tailor it to your and your family’s taste, diet and allergy needs. By making these snacks at home we avoid the store bought varieties that are often overpriced and/or filled with other dubious ingredients that we do not need in our bodies.
Yes, preparing homemade snacks does take a bit of preparation, but seriously, the trade-off for making it a priority once or twice a week, far outweighs what you are consuming from most store-bought options. Having fun with variations of nuts, seeds, dried fruit along with blood sugar stabilising oats, you can be assured that you are nourishing yourself as well as enjoying something yummy.
I like to change it up so the kids don’t get bored. I love these especially as they require no baking! Just give the ingredients a good mix and leave them in the fridge to set. These can very easily be made in ten minutes before you go to bed at night and come morning, your family has snacks ready to go for the day. They are super easy for older kids to even make on their own.
You will notice that I’ve used butter in this bar and are probably wondering ‘how is that healthy?’ Butter does a great job at holding the dry ingredients together at room temperature compared to coconut oil. Using a good quality, full fat, organic butter does contain health benefits and is satiating. Everything in moderation obviously. ENJOY!
xxx
No Bake Muesli Bars
These healthy, chewy, no-bake muesli bars, are packed with goodness and super easy to whip up in a flash. A great snack alternative for the whole family.
- 2 cups rolled oats
- ⅔ cup cranberries or raisins (not coated in veg oil)
- ⅓ cup pepita seeds
- ⅓ cup desiccated coconut
- ⅓ cup apricots (unsulfered & roughly chopped)
- ⅓ cup almonds (roughly chopped)
- ⅓ cup ground flax seeds
- ¼ cup runny raw honey
- 2 tbsp peanut butter (can use preferred nut butter or seed butter)
- 3 heaped tbsp organic butter
- ¼ tsp sea salt or Himalayan salt
Place all the ingredients except for the honey, butter and peanut butter in a large bowl.
In a small saucepan, over a medium heat, melt the honey, butter and peanut butter until well incorporated and runny.
Pour the wet mixture into the dry and give it a good mix until all the ingredients are well combined.
Line an 8×8 inch baking tin and spread the mixture out evenly. Press down heavily onto the mixture so it is well squashed. I like to use a potato masher to get it nice and compacted (use the back of a wet spoon to smooth it out).
Place the tin into the fridge and refrigerate until well set. Over night is best.
Once set, slice the muesli into bars with a sharp knife. Keep the muesli bars in the fridge.
If the mixture looks too dry after mixing, especially if you have added more dry ingredients than the recipe, increase the quantity of wet ingredients to compensate, otherwise the bars will collapse on cutting.
