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:
I LOVE Clif Kids Z-bars. Especially the Brownie flavored…yum! I buy them “for my kids” but I always end up eating more than they do!
Question: Have you tried using Coconut Nectar in any of your recipes? I’m wondering if I could substitute the agave in this recipe. I bought a bottle because I saw it in my local health food store and it sounded interesting, but I’m not sure how to use it. The label makes it sound like it is a healthier alternative to agave, but I’ve never tasted agave so I’m not sure if this is similar! It’s molasses thick, comes from the sap of a coconut tree, but doesn’t taste like maple syrup. I guess I could stop typing about it and just give it try, right? 😉
I don’t think I’ve ever seen coconut nectar. I’ll have to look out for it!
I just wanted to update that I used the coconut nectar and it turned out really well! I was too lazy to grind up some oat flour, so I used powdered peanut butter (PB2) instead and it was tasty! Maybe a little too salty for me (my kids and husband liked it that way) since the PB2 contains salt, but still really good. Oh, and I added a sprinkling of mini chocolate chips. I couldn’t help myself. 😉
I’ve used coconut nectar in many recipes. It has worked fine for me in anything that calls for agave, or honey. Only thing I’ve noticed is that it doesn’t seem quite as sweet to me. I’m fine with less sweet, but if you have a sweet tooth maybe up the amount or add some stevia too??
I’ve been buying Odwalla lately. I love the banana nut flavor– just like a piece of banana bread. 😀
Hi Katie, I made these bars just last night for my Dad but when I tried to cut them ((this morning)) they were just crumbling and breaking :(. I DID squish them down as hard as I could. Any ideas why they might be so crumbly??
Jade C.
I don’t know 🙁
It’s so hard to know what could’ve gone wrong when I wasn’t there to see the process.
I made these VERY successfully the first time using 2 Tbs honey and 1 Tbs maple syrup for the wet sweetener and 1 Tbs brown sugar for the dry. They were amazing!! The second time, since I have five kids, I doubled the recipe and used all maple syrup for the liquid sweetener. They came out crumbly. I’m not sure if it was the all maple or doubling in a 9×12, but I am guessing the maple syrup wasn’t sticky enough. We have bite size chunks, which is great, and the rest is perfect granola, so it certainly wasn’t a fail!
Thanks, Katie!
Hmmm… yeah, agave is stickier/thicker than maple syrup. I’m guessing that was the issue. But your granola idea sounds really good, actually!
Mine were crumbly too. I think it could be because I used quick -cooking oats. They were still delicious so I’ll try again with regular oats.
Katie, these came out perfect! Thank you! I ended up using olive oil, 1/4 cup ground up rice cake instead of cereal and 1t brown sugar. It seemed a little dry when i was mixing so i also added 1t almond milk….definitely nature valley worthy! 🙂
My boyfriend loves the PB Nature Valley bars and I was wondering if the recipe would still work if I used PB instead of coconut or veg oil.
Thank you for the great recipe. 🙂
Hi! I recently found your blog through Pinterest, and I am LOVING your recipes! My husband and I are trying to go completely sugar-free as we both have a lot of weight to lose, and I have an autoimmune disorder which is aggravated by sugar intake. Anyway, I have what is probably a silly question: I’ve never used coconut oil before, so when measuring it, should I cook it down/liquify it before measuring, or do you just measure the solid form?? Sorry for the amateurish question, and thank you for the great recipe, I can’t wait to try these this weekend!
Not silly at all!
Yes, you should melt it first. Or if you live in a hot place like Texas, it’s already melted… my coconut oil is hardly ever solid to begin with! 😉
I too have been wanting to make some peanut butter granola bars and so far this is the closest to what I’m interested in (except for the pb). Do you have any opinions on simply adding some pb to this recipe? I was going to go for chewy anyways, as that’s what the boys here prefer 🙂
I don’t have any advice… but if you try it, I’d love to hear the results!
These were delicious! Problem, though… the wax paper stuck to the bottom of the bars. Did I use it incorrectly, somehow? I turned the bars into regular granola while trying to get the paper off, which worked to a certain extent… but I’m also pretty sure I ingested a fair amount of wax paper 🙂
Hmmm… oh yikes 🙁
I’m not sure what could’ve been the issue. Maybe spray the wax paper with oil spray next time? (I didn’t, and mine still didn’t stick, but maybe it’s a particular brand difference?)
I’ve got to try this. I especially like the idea of peanut butter ones, but I will try the recipe pretty much as written first. But just a thought on a PB variation: Maybe some ground peanuts instead of ground oats and PB instead of the oil?
Mmm I’ve got to try these! I hope they’re not as crumbly as the store bought ones. I’d love it if you made a recipe for clif bars. 🙂 especially white chocolate macadamia flavor.