I was looking for the perfect granola bar recipe: I wanted something healthy, that I could take on the road, and easy to make. I found a great recipe on The Minimalist Baker.
I basically stuck to her original recipe, which can be found here. I didn't have dates, so I used dried cranberries and cherries instead. I also added some chocolate chips. The end result is a tasty and very healthy bar that makes a satisfying snack or light breakfast.
Ingredients
1 cup dried fruit (I used 1/2 cranberries and 1/2 cherries)
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup salted peanut butter
1 cup roasted almonds, loosely chopped
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup chocolate chips
any other optional add-ins
Heat oven to 350 degrees and toast the oats spread out on a cookie sheet for 10-15 minutes, shaking the pan a bit once or twice. Food process the dried fruit until it's in really small pieces- it forms a sort of paste. Put the honey and peanut butter in a small bowl and microwave to heat it up; stir to combine (you could do this on the stovetop but I didn't want to deal with a sticky pot.) Combine oats, almonds, dried fruit, chocolate chips, and honey-peanut butter mixture. Stir to mix well.
Line an 8x8 baking pan with parchment paper. Transfer the mixture to the pan and press down until it's uniformly flat and packed in. Put the pan in the fridge or freezer for half an hour or so to harden. Lift the parchment paper out and cut into ten bars.
Made this way, each bar has 230 calories. They can be stored in an airtight container at room temp, although the fridge is nice to keep them from getting melty. I also individually wrapped them in plastic wrap for convenience.
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