Homemade Healthy Chewy Granola Bars – The easiest and fail proof stove top, no bake granola bars recipe that you could ever hope to make and it takes just 5 minutes of your time for this healthy treat that your kids will love.
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5 full minutes is all it takes to make and enjoy this healthy snack on the go. Also these bars do not use rolled oats and maple syrup unlike most of the granola bars. As both these ingredients come under imported goods they literally cost a bomb.
These bars take just 5 ingredients that are already available in your pantry and keeping this granola bar recipe as the base, you can come up with lots of variations.
Earlier I used to make these bars with cornflakes as the kids loved the crunchiness it gave contrasting the oats, but recently as I ran out of cornflakes and I had lots of pori (Rice Krispies) left out after making Kaara pori for our snacks, decided to use it in the bars and it was like a combination of both granola bars and rice krispies bars into one single bar.
Some Variations that you can try making:
- Use crushed flavored or plain cornflakes instead of rice krispies.
- Add chopped nuts like almonds, cashews, pistachios etc.
- Add dry fruits like dates, raisins, black currants, cranberries, tutti frutti and apricots as you wish.
- You can make these bars nuts-free by adding sunflower seeds, toasted flax seeds, pumpkin seeds etc.,
- Add unsweetened desiccated coconut and replace the vanilla essence with some cardamom essence.
- Instead of chocolate chips, you can use M&M’s or colored sprinkles.
- You can reduce the oil and replace it with some Peanut Butter or Nutella.
Some healthy snacks that you can try out are Pappad Rolls, Chili Bread, Butterscotch Blondies and Spicy Couscous Muffins that are both easy to make and healthy as well.
Homemade Granola Bars recipe details below:
Homemade Healthy Chewy Granola Bars
Ingredients
- Quick Cooking Oats – 2 cups
- Puffed Rice / Pori / Murmura – 1 cup
- Brown sugar – ¼ cup
- Butter / Oil – ¼ cup (I used coconut oil)
- Honey – ¼ cup
- Vanilla essence – 1 tsp optional
- Chocolate chips – ¼ cup optional
Instructions
- Heat a pan and dry roast quick cooking oats over medium flame taking care not to burn it.
- Transfer to a large bowl, add puffed rice, mix well and keep aside. Grease a square pan with oil and keep aside.
- In a sauce pan, mix together oil, brown sugar and honey and heat over low flame. Simmer for 2 minutes till the sugar dissolves completely and small bubbles start forming around the corners and it becomes frothy.
- Keep stirring continuously with a spatula. I used a balloon whisk.
- Take off stove and add vanilla essence and mix well.
- Immediately pour this mixture over the oats and krispies mix and with the help of a wooden spatula mix well. It will be hot, so if mixing by hand, you may wish to wear gloves.
- Dump the entire contents into the greased pan and press well. I greased a flat bottomed small bowl on the outer side and used it to press and pack the bars tightly into the tray.
- Sprinkle chocolate chips all over and press them into the mixture as well. Let it cool for 1-2 hours. Grease a knife with oil and cut them into slices and serve.
- I believe this will keep well for 3-4 days at room temperature but it never lasted that long in my home for me to find out.
Notes
Loved it! Like all your recipes that I have read so far!
Awesome recipe - quick and easy. I love the variations and I often throw in what i have in the way of fruit, nuts, chocolate, dedicated coconut, breakfast cereals etc. just make sure you have enough wet ingredients otherwise you end up with muesli clusters (still nice though).