Homemade Granola Bars: 42 Granola Bar Recipes We Love (2024)

FAQs

What helps homemade granola bars stick together? ›

While there are several different sticky ingredients that you can use, we've found that the binding agent that works the best is honey! When added to your homemade granola bars, honey acts as glue that sticks all the pieces together.

Homemade granola bars are a great alternative to store-bought ones. Because they typically use minimally processed ingredients and very little added sugar or salt, they're often more nutritious than packaged versions.

If your granola bars are falling apart or seem too crumbly, here are a few tips. Make sure you use honey or another sticky sweetener such as maple syrup in the liquid part of the recipe; this recipe calls for honey. This will help bind together the ingredients and keep that signature bar shape.

Not only can you pick the flavors and ingredients you want, but you don't have to worry about preservatives or other odd additions to your snack food. MAKE OR BUY? Homemade granola bars aren't hard to make once you have all the right ingredients and they'll certainly save you money in the long term.

Natural peanut or cashew butter – It helps bind the bars together, and it adds protein, healthy fats, and irresistible nutty flavor. Whole rolled oats – They give these bars a perfect chewy texture. If you're gluten-free, make sure that you use certified gluten-free oats.

Higher temperatures can cause ingredients like nuts, seeds, and coconut to burn before the batch has a chance to properly dry out and crisp up, Perry says. Stick with a low temperature, keep an eye on your mixture, and stir it from time to time to help it brown evenly.

Are Granola Bars Healthy? Granola bars can be healthy, but added sugars, calories, and artificial flavors can diminish the health quality of some over others. Many people consider granola bars a convenient and healthy snack and enjoy their flavor and versatility.

Yes, granola can be eaten daily. As part of a balanced diet and if the portions are checked. Go for healthier options with less added sugars and saturated fats to get the most out of it.

High-fiber foods, like the oats and whole grains found in granola, fill you up and keep you feeling fuller longer. Dietary studies have found eating a high-fiber diet can help you lose weight. Dried fruit and nuts also contain antioxidants, like vitamin E, which can lower inflammation in the body.

While the oats and nuts bake, you can make the sticky glue that holds our bars together. You'll melt butter, honey, and brown sugar in a saucepan and simmer until the sugar dissolves. Mix this sticky mixture with the toasted oats and nuts.

What happened to Quaker granola bars? ›

The recall affects certain varieties of Quaker cereals, such as Oatmeal Squares, Chewy granola bars, Cap'n Crunch products and more. The Quaker Oats Company issued a recall in late 2023 and has added more products to its recall list in 2024 due to a risk of contamination with salmonella.

Nut butter helps hold these bars together, and offers protein, healthy fat and fiber. You could use peanut butter, almond butter, or even pecan butter. For a nut-free option, sunflower butter will work.

Even though you should refrigerate your granola bars to help them firm up quickly, you do not need to store them in the refrigerator. After cutting them, I wrap mine in a strip of parchment or wax paper (to keep them from sticking to each other) and then store them in a resealable Ziploc bag in my cabinet.

Often touted for their whole grain goodness, most granola bars are sticky-sweet junk food in disguise. Don't let a few oats fool you — especially when you also see marshmallows and chocolate chips. Instead: If granola bars are a must-have, choose one with 6 grams of sugar or less per bar, and hopefully some fibre.

Clumpy Granola Method: Bake at Low Temperature and Don't Stir. About this method: This straightforward method, recommend by several sources, including Alexandra Cooks, relies on a very low oven temperature (275°F, which is lower than most granola recipes) and an hour-long bake time, with absolutely no stirring.

Parchment paper sheets: Parchment paper prevents the granola from sticking to the pan and therefore allows it to break away into big chunks.

General Mills told Bloomer that eaters could try warming the bars up in the microwave to soften them first (but take them out of the package first). This seems to work, according to one test video, but it turned out the tester preferred the taste of the crunchy, crumbly version to the less messy one.