Vegetarian homemade granola bars
Here’s another one for the kids. Since really delving into a plant-based diet I’m really seeing my kids’ diets for what they are. I mean I’ve eaten a vegetarian diet in some form for several years now. So my family has too. But sometimes that meant junk-food vegetarian meals. You know, meals that don’t have meat but really don’t offer a whole lot of nutrition or else they may be nutritious but contain a lot of fat or sugar.
It wasn’t until the last year that this really became clear to me. Now when I see my kids eating a bag of chips with lunch, a candybar after school and then a bowl of ice cream after dinner I cringe at how much sugar they are ingesting. I’ve been trying to make healthy snacks for them like chocolate covered frozen banana bites, or bananas dipped in yogurt and frozen.
But one of my favorites are homemade granola bars. These are a bit of a sell to my boys because frankly they don’t have as much sugar as the store bought versions. Actually they have no sugar. But they are still tasty.
I’m not good about recording recipes so you may have to play with this but it’s easy.
I used about 1 1/2 cups of oats, added about 3/4 cup of almond butter, a handful of chopped raw almonds, another handful of raw chopped cashews, a handful of chocolate chips and dried cranberries and mixed it up. I added honey slowly as I mixed it until it was a sticky consistency. I’d guess it was about 1/4 cup of honey. But add it slowly and use your judgment. The batter should be sticky but not too wet or runny.
In a jelly roll pan or cookie sheet with high edges I put the batter and pressed it down tightly. You want to make sure to form the batter so that it’s a big rectangle that’s tightly pressed so it holds together well.
I baked it for about 10 minutes at 350 until it was just a tiny bit brown at the bottom. Then let them cool before cutting them into bars.
Sorry about the lack of exact recipe but it is a recipe that is easy to adapt with some experimentation. The bars will hold together albeit some what delicately. My little boy loves these but when he eats them they tend to get crumbs everywhere so beware. But enjoy, they are wonderful and relatively guilt free because they don’t have all the processed chemicals and sugar. Hope your kids like them too!
