Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Granola Bars

Ingredients

  • 2 cups oat
  • ⅓ cup honey
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • ½ cup chocolate chips
  • ⅓ cup nuts
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
  • Cooking spray

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
  2. Melt the butter in a small pan.
  3. Add honey and mix until well combined.
  4. Place oats, nuts, vanilla and applesauce in large bowl and combine.
  5. Add butter/honey mixture and stir until well combined.
  6. Put ½ of the chocolate chips in (1/4 cup). Note: They will melt, but that helps hold the bars together.
  7. Once the oat mixture has cooled, add the remaining chips.
  8. Press the mixture into an 8 X 8 pan sprayed with cooking spray (anything bigger will result in the bars not “sticking”).
  9. Cook for 30 minutes.
  10. Let cool 10 minutes before placing in the fridge for an additional 15 minutes.
  11. Invert the pan and dump the bars onto parchment paper.
  12. Allow to cool completely before cutting into bars.
  13. Enjoy!

Nutritional data

Serving size: 1 bar Calories: 117 Fat: 5.8 grams Carbohydrates: 16 grams Protein: 1.87 grams

All nutritional data is approximate.

 

 

One of the benefits of baking the same thing over and over again is that after awhile you figure out what that "little something" you wanted to improve was. Enter my Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Granola Bars. I have made a version of these for longer than I can remember. They usually last a max of 2 days (if I'm lucky), but there was always something not quite right. Don't get me wrong - the old recipe was great, but it just lacked a little something. Full of coffee and with the creative juices flowing I tried a few new things and it worked! They are the perfect blend of crunchy and chewy and oh so good!

A few notes:

I have made numerous versions varying the amount and type of chocolate chips. You can also add more chocolate chips. Each 1/4 cup of chocolate chips adds approximately 350 calories, 22.5 grams of fat, 45 grams of carbs, 40 grams of sugar and 2.5 grams of protein per batch.

Another option I really like is using Sunspire's Grain Sweetened Dark Chocolate Baking Chips. Each 1/4 cup is 160 calories, 4 grams of fat, 9 grams of carbs, 2 grams of sugar and 1 gram of protein. Using a 1/2 cup would still be less calories/fat/carbs than 1/4 cup of regular dark chocolate chips. So why don't I always use these? The Natural Grocer's I buy them from is about 30 minutes away. When I need to make them quickly, I head to the local grocery store where my best option is Special Dark Chocolate Chips.