My mom and I teach a cooking class to middle school aged kids once a month at our home school co-op. Trail mix/granola bars were on the menu for April. My mom decided to do the trail mix, so I thought no-bake granola bars would be fast and fun! These came out great, BUT they aren’t exactly what I think of when I think of granola bars, so they became “Healthy Rice Crispy Bars”. (We didn’t tell the kids they were healthy.)
These are just delicious and I love that they have very little sugar and lots of healthy ingredients.
Just a warning: they are super crumbly unless they have been cooled completely and stored in the fridge. Mary let her bar warm up (to room temp) and then crumbled it over her vanilla yogurt one morning, she said it was AMAZING!
- ½ cup butter
- ½ cup honey
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 2½ cups oats
- 3 cups crispy rice cereal
- 1 cup unsweetened coconut
- 2 tablespoons chai seeds
- 2 tablespoons flax seeds
- 1 cup dried fruit like:(raisins, cranberries)
- 1 cup seeds and/or nuts like: (slivered almonds and sunflower seeds)
- Put the butter, honey and brown sugar into a large pot on medium heat and stir.
- When it starts to boil add the rest of the ingredients to the pot.
- Stir to combine and keep cooking and stirring for several minutes just to make sure your honey mixture is coating your dry ingredients.
- Firmly press your mixture into a 9x13 inch pan that has been lined with a greased piece of parchment paper.
- Place the pan in the refrigerator to cool.
- When completely cooled, cut into bars and enjoy. Any leftovers should be stored in an air tight container in the fridge.
In the bars that are pictured we used raisins and cranberries for the dried fruit and sunflower seeds for the nuts/seeds. Any dried fruit cut into small pieces would work great and any combination of nuts/seeds would work too!