Imagine yourself eating your favorite granola…
Now imagine eating your favorite granola… in the form of a granola bar! Nature Valley Granola Bars… Do you know the ones I’m talking about?
Those crunchy bars in the green wrappers? My friend Sarah calls them “horse food” because they’re made up of oats and sugar—things that horses like to eat. But the following granola bar recipe is much too good to share with horses. Sorry, horses.
Soccer Fuel
When I was in high school (it seems like a lifetime ago!), I played on the varsity soccer team, and our daily practices fell right after school. So I got in the habit of grabbing a bar—often a Nature Valley granola bar—to munch in the locker room while dressing out.
I’d completely forgotten about my past with Nature Valley until a few days ago, when I tasted an attempt at what was supposed to be a chewy granola bar.
“Woah, these taste exactly like Nature Valley oats-n-honey bars,” my roommate proclaimed after trying a bite. “Except, maybe these are even better!” (She quickly proceeded to eat two whole bars.)
Nature Valley Granola Bars Recipe
Category: Healthy & Gluten-Free Recipes
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1/4 cup rice crispies (I used brown rice crispies)
- 3 tbsp oat flour (You can make your own by grinding oats in a food processor*.)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp coconut oil or veg oil
- 3 tbsp agave or other liquid sweetener
- 1 packet stevia (or 1 tbsp dry sweetener)
Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine dry ingredients, then mix in wet. Transfer to a 7×5 baking dish (lined with parchment paper), and press down. Squish HARD. Hard hard hard. Then cook for around 18 minutes. Wait at least 20 minutes before trying to cut into bars. *If making oat flour, measure the 3tbsp after grinding.
Other bars I’ve done:
Yum!! I LOVE those bars!
omg looks amazing. I can never find good GF bars to make so these are perfect. Thanks Katie!
Awesome blog Katie. Going to hit you up every time I need to make a dessert for an event. My roommate and I put on healthy feasts and then blog about them. We will make sure to steer everyone to your page!
Yum! I love the Nature Valley Bars (except the ones with, y’know, artificial colors, flavors, corn syrups, and whatnot) so I’ll give these a try soon! I’m out of homemade granola bars anyway 😉
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YUMMY!!!! I was just thinking of looking for a recipe and this appeared in my inbox….thanks! I love your recipes! Especially the chocolate ones…hehehe!
They look exactly like the real things! Can’t wait to try them!
I love how simple and clean this recipe is. My girls don’t like granola bars with too much ‘going on’ so I can’t wait for them to try these.
I’ve always loved the crunch of those bars, just not the ingredients. These look wwaaaaaayyyyy better!
These bars look so good! I used to really like the Nature Valley bars, but now I think they’re too sweet. These look like they’ll be perfect! It’s so funny that your friend calls them “horse food.” I recently made a batch of healthy oatmeal cookies that got a similar reaction. When my husband tried them, he said they tasted like horse food, and he started calling them “horse cookies.” Now, whenever I make anything healthy, he puts the word “horse” in front of it.
Remember Clif Nectar bars? Like Lara bars, but smoother, and very sadly, discontinued. They made a fabulous lemon/goji bar that was tart, and citrus-y, and all around good, and made up a large part of my diet when I was pregnant. I’d LOVE to see those cloned, or maybe Clif could just start making them again. I’d happily pay for them.
Yes! Those (the chocolate flavors) were my FAVORITES. I was so so sad when they discontinued them!