Healthy Homemade Granola Bars

Is there anything better than a sweet treat that won’t wreck your day? I didn’t think so. Let me introduce you to my friend, granola.

A few years ago, my husband and I started making healthier lifestyle choices. We made it a point to be more active, started drinking more water and less coke (everything is “Coke” to us 🙂 ), and started paying more attention to the foods we were buying. I started cooking with more fruits/vegetables and less sugar. I stopped serving bread with nearly every meal. We cut out nearly all pre-made store-bought quick meals.

For about 2 years, we were pretty strict with this lifestyle. Now that we have a toddler and another little girl on the way, I try to stick to this *most* of the time and still try to be as mindful as I can about the groceries I buy. I found the bones for this granola recipe early on in our healthier lifestyle learning process, and over the years have adapted it to what we like (and normally have in our pantry).

If you’ve been to our house in the last few years, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve had some of this granola. It makes the perfect grab-and-go snack or sweet tooth satisfier in the evenings.

One of my favorite things about this recipe is how versatile it is! You can add virtually any topping you like for endless possibilities. The favorites in our house are semi-sweet chocolate chips, blueberries, or strawberries. Hint: store in the fridge if you’re going to use fresh fruit as a topping…I learned that the hard way one time 🙂 .

Here’s what you’ll need to put your own batch in the oven pronto:

Ingredients

1 cup peanut butter

2/3 cup honey

2 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats

1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce

1 tbs. cinnamon

Steps

1 – Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2 – Combine oats and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Set aside.

3 – Melt the peanut butter and honey in a saucepan on medium heat. Low and slow so that it doesn’t burn. Confession: I HATE measuring peanut butter, so I always eyeball it.

4 – Once melted, pour the mixture on top of the dry ingredients. Now you’ll need some elbow grease. Quickly (before it hardens) stir everything together until there are no dry oats in the bowl.

5- Add the applesauce.

6 – Continue stirring until thoroughly combined.

7 – Evenly spread mixture in a greased 9×13 pan. Hint: I usually line my pan with foil and spray with cooking spray.

8 – Add your desired toppings.

9 – Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. If you like it a little crunchier, or with burnt ends (YUM!), cook for a few minutes longer.

And there you have it! Fair warning, this recipe is so easy and delicious that it’s addictive. There was a time when we went weeks with a batch made at all times. Sorry not sorry…