Are you looking for a good granola bar recipe?
This recipe won’t disappoint.
These delightfully chewy granola bars include all the goodness of everyone’s favorite Quaker granola bars, but without the corn syrup, refined sugar, and long list of artificial ingredients. So if you’re looking for a good granola bar recipe…
It’s staring you in the face. 🙂
Unless you are extremely tall or your computer is low to the ground.
Then it’s staring you in the belly button.
It even looks like a face. See the eyes and the nose? Those would be made out of chocolate chips. Yes, a chocolate chip face.
Are you jealous?
I am!
Oh, to live life with a chocolate chip face…
Quaker Style Chewy Granola Bars
(Can be gluten-free)
- 1 cup rolled oats (for all substitution notes, see nutrition link below)
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 cup rice crispies (brown, white, or gluten-free)
- 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp oat flour (see recipe instructions below for an easy substitution) 55g
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp coconut oil or veg oil (See nutrition link below for notes on a fat-free version.)
- 1/4 cup agave (Honey will also work, but not for strict vegans.)
- 1-2 packs stevia (up to 1/16 tsp uncut) or 1-2 tablespoons brown sugar or extra liquid sweetener
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp applesauce (banana would probably work as well, or pumpkin!)
- Ideas for the add-ins: mini chocolate chips, chopped raisins or other dried fruit, shredded coconut, chopped walnuts, etc.
Unless you’re doing the no-bake option, preheat oven to 350 F. Combine all dry ingredients and mix very well. (If you don’t have oat flour: simply grind rolled oats in a food processor to make oat flour. Be sure to measure the correct amount of flour for the recipe after grinding, not before.) In a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients. Stir wet into dry and use another sheet of parchment (or wax) paper to squish evenly-coated mixture into a parchment-lined 7×5 pan (or double the recipe for a bigger pan). Squish very, very hard, with a can or something heavy. Either fridge until firm (the no-bake option is firmer if you use coconut oil), or cook 18 minutes, then squish very hard again. Cool in the fridge for at least ten minutes before cutting into bars.
These bars can be stored at room temp, but if you use coconut oil they’re best kept in the fridge. Or they can even be frozen. The bars thaw very well. Other homemade granola bar recipes:
(Click on the photos to see the recipes.)
Do you wish you were taller?
Or shorter? Or are you happy exactly the way you are? I’m 5’5, and I always wanted to be taller when I was growing up. But now I actually like my average height. My grandpa used to say that you’re tall enough as long as your feet touch the ground. How are grandparents so wise? 🙂
Ironically I just made the peanut butter pretzel bars last night! These will be fun to try later today. Breaks up my studying.
I am 5’6″ and pretty fine with that height.
I went through the time in which I wanted to be the tall, leggy super-model until I had a tall friend who talks about the challenges of being a tall female. 🙂
Have a great day. I hope your site is recovering from all the traffic!
I also wished I was shorter for awhile because I had this shorter, “perfect in all ways – LOL” younger sister that got all the attention. THANKFULLY I quickly grew out of that!
PS. I put chocolate chips (and broken pretzel) in the peanut butter ones last night. Of course.
I actually don’t get much more traffic on giveaway days (sometimes even less!). I think it’s cause the readers will read anyway, but they don’t comment unless it’s a giveaway. What crashed the site was everyone trying to comment at once.
Right now I am having the worst time with my inbox. Over 5,000 new emails when I woke up this morning, even after I was deleting them all day yesterday :-?. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ll ever want to do another giveaway of this caliber! I was excited because I knew people would love it… but lol TOO MANY people love it ;).
Oh my gosh! That is a LOT of new e-mail. Even on busier work related sites I have done I have never had to deal with that much.
That would be rough. You almost need to outsource the giveaway. 🙂 That is a good point about less traffic too. I pretty much got in, commented, and left the site alone because it was slow loading. 🙂
OK. If that is normal traffic I am glad there is not normally all those comments because I love reading the comments!
I love reading them too! This is making me so sad, because there’s so much in my inbox that I can’t even find the comments from other posts right now. I really hope no one has an immediate question. I can’t delete the emails fast enough… as I delete a row, another row pours in! Haha I think I need to hire someone to just sit there and delete emails for me :).
Maybe you can create a “rule” (should be somewhere in your email settings) to siphon off all the giveaway emails into another folder. It really is simple to implement, just set a keyword like “giveaway” or something that identifies the emails that will come in response to that post, and create a folder for them to divert into.
Thank you! I actually told my roommate this morning that I wished there were some way to filter them out, but I didn’t think there really was a way. Now I’m going straight to check it out in my settings :).
Next time just ask people to put a specific subject line, like “Vitamix Giveaway.” Then set up a rule or filter – as Georgia says – to automatically pull anything with that subject in its own folder/label. Super easy and keeps your inbox clean. And anyone who can’t read the rules well enough to put the proper subject line gets deleted. 😉
(Also be aware that Facebook has very strict rules about promotions – you can’t enter a contest just by liking a page or leaving a comment, for example – you have to use their app – https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php )
I just did it! Hoping it works :).
And for the facebook thing, I actually don’t want people to enter through facebook at all! They keep doing it, and I keep writing on my wall, “PLEASE DO NOT ENTER through facebook!” lol
Got it! Indebted to you forever, Georgia! 🙂
Great! Does this give me extra points in the giveaway? 😀 Just kidding.
Nah, just find some way to invent a magic self-replenishing box of fudge babies …no matter how many I make, they just seem to all disappear before the end of the day!
Haha hey I think you should get extra entries for that. You saved me a huge headache. I wouldn’t be against it if you happened to enter 2 more times (I’d say ten, but other readers might yell at me!)
(This was meant as a reply to your comment above, but stupid wordpress won’t let me do more than 10 nested comments. Boo.)
Katie,
I have tried several of your recipes and my family and I love them however, I would like to make these for a group of 50 students and am curious as to how cooking them in larger batches will affect the outcome. Any comments or suggestions would be welcome
Chewy Granola Bars remind me of my childhood. My mom would buy them all the time to throw in our lunches or to eat a couple for breakfast. Obviously they aren’t the most nutritious snack/meal so I love seeing your healthier version of them.
This made me laugh because we could have the standard (crunchy ones) but when the chewy ones came out I remember I wanted them bad (especially the chocolate chip ones) and was denied! 🙂
I think the first time I got to try a chocolate chip chewy one was from my Grammy. She would also buy me honey nut cheerios when I stayed over. She was my sugar partner in crime! 🙂
Oh, yum! I love making my own granola bars–I would probably make these without the rice krispies since I tend to prefer mine chewy with no crunch! 🙂
Hi Katie,
I’ve tried to make the Copycat Nature Valley Granola Bars with maple syrup (I was out of Agave) and they turned out great! really delicious and crispy! I’ve also made another batch using whey protein (in place of oat flour) and the result was delicious too!!
This weekend I’ll be making one replacing coconut oil for pb! 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing! These bars are amazingggg 🙂
Definitely report back on the pb experiment! 🙂
Oh yes, I’ve been wanting to make a granola bar recipe like this for a long time! Thank you!
I’m 5’9.5, pretty tall for a girl. When I was little I wished I was shorter, but now I love my height 🙂
Homemade granola bars make great snacks and GIFTS! I love this! 🙂 ….I’m 5’10 and I’m okay with it. A 1/2 in taller would be okay but I’m thankful for my height- especially since the husband isn’t tall at all- it gives our kiddos a chance to be average size….
Ooo these granola bars look fantastic and your pictures are making me want them even more! Great recipe! 🙂
chewy granola bars are my favourite! these look delicious.
I’m 5’10” and always wanted to be shorter when growing up. My friend were all around 5’2″, haha. But when I started getting older I became thankful for my height. It’s also what allowed me to model, which was a really cool experience. So, while I used to wish to be shorter, I’m happy with my height now 🙂
Hey katie! I was wondering. Can you make oat flour with a magic bullet or a blender? Or does it have to be a food processor?
Also, I am 5’8” and i absolutely LOVE my height:) Although my critera for a man seceretly is that he has be taller than me with heels on haha.
You can use a Magic Bullet!! 🙂
thanks so much!!!:)
This is my criteria too – let me tell you, we get such a smaller pool to choose from haha! But I have dated a guy who was 5’9″ (too short), 6’7″ (too tall) and 6″4 (just right, though on the tall side). I basically have narrowed it down to 6’1″-6″4″. Yeah, that’s not a small pool at all 😉 haha!
In high school, I got to date a really cute guy who was 5’6. Muahahaha the benefits of being short ;).
Then again, who cares if he’s shorter than you? Look at Tom Cruise (weird couch antics aside). They’re such a cute family… mainly because the little girl is so cute!
Ooh, these look good! 😀
I think I know what I’ll be doing this weekend…
I’m 5’5 too, and I’m pretty sure I’ve stopped growing. I’m comfortable with my height! At least there are always heels if I have a momentary change of heart…