Peanut Butter Oat Breakfast Bars
/Gluten free, vegan peanut butter oat bars are great for breakfast or an afternoon snack. Filled with nuts, oats, and chocolate and topped with flaky salt, they are endlessly adaptable, healthy, and use ingredients you probably already have in your pantry.
I’m very picky when it comes to bakeries. A lot of American bakeries rely on sugar alone as flavor and, due to the volume of production, most treats are mediocre at best. That being said, there are a few bakeries who produce exceptional breads, pastries, and treats. They focus on quality over quantity and charge appropriately for their labor, allowing them to invest in skilled bakers and high-quality ingredients. Stopping by one of these rare bakery gems is an absolute delight. One of my very favorite bakeries is Wild Love Bakehouse in Knoxville, Tennessee. It’s a small cafe where natural light streams through the floor to ceiling windows, where you can watch the bakers knead and laminate dough through glass walls, where people gather at picnic tables watching kids run up and down the grassy lawn, where the coffee is always perfect and the croissants are always flaky. It’s a community spot through and through.
All summer, we would spend mornings before work or days off huddled around those picnic tables, drinking iced coffees and littering the table with croissant crumbs and Wild Love quickly became one of the friends I would miss upon my return to Florida. Everything that they make is great, from the chocolate croissants to the sausage biscuits, but it was their peanut butter oat bar that surprisingly stole the show. The peanut butter oat bar is the only gluten free baked good offered, so they sell out fast. They are thick squares, double the size of a brownie. Oats, nuts, and chocolate chips are bound together by peanut butter to create a cookie-like protein bar that will keep you full until lunch. And, of course, the tops are littered with a smattering of flaky salt, which you know if you’ve been around this blog for any amount of time is the fastest way to my heart.
making homemade granola bars
When I came back home to Florida and could no longer drive 3 minutes down the street for my peanut butter bar fix, I started working on my own. These can pass as breakfast or dessert, or both and will keep in the fridge for the whole week. If you are trying to stay away from refined sugars, try substituting coconut sugar for brown sugar. Feel free to make them your own, using whatever mix-ins you’d like, but make sure you don’t forget the salt! To make them vegan, just make sure to use vegan chocolate chips!
Peanut Butter Oat Breakfast Bars
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cup rolled oats
- 3/4 cup ground flaxseed
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/3 cup light brown sugar*
- 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 1/3 cup almond butter
- 1/3 cup peanut butter
- 1 T vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup walnuts, toasted
- 1 cup dark chocolate pieces
- 1/2 cup coconut chips, toasted
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line a 9x13” baking dish with parchment leaving about an inch overhang and set aside.
- In the bowl of a food processor, combine 3/4 cups rolled oats and flaxseed. Pulse until oats are coarsely ground and resemble the consistency of bread crumbs. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and add the remaining 1 cup whole rolled oats, cinnamon, and salt.
- Place chopped walnuts on a small baking sheet and toast for 5-7 minutes, until nutty and fragrant. In the last 2-3 minutes of toasting, add the coconut chips. Remove from the oven when everything is lightly browned and let cool while you mix the wet ingredients.
- In a medium bowl, combined melted coconut oil, maple syrup, brown sugar, vanilla extract, and nut butters. Whisk until smooth and homogenous.
- Pour combined wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold with a rubber spatula until well mixed and a crumbly batter has formed. Fold in the walnuts, toasted coconut, and chocolate.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and use a rubber spatula or your hand to press down into an even layer. Bake for 25-30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until golden brown. Remove from the oven, sprinkle with flaky salt, and let cool in the pan for at least an hour. (The longer you let them cool, the more likely they will hold together). If you want to speed this up, when the pan has cooled mostly, you can transfer it to the refrigerator.
- When you are ready to slice, grab the parchment paper sides and gently lift the bars out of the pan. Slice into even squares and share with a friend!
Notes:
If you are trying to stay away from refined sugars, try substituting coconut sugar for brown sugar.
To make these vegan, make sure to use vegan chocolate chips in place of regular chocolate chips.
