Homemade Granola Bars

Perfect for snacking, breakfast and great for when you’re on the go!

Once you make these delicious homemade granola bars you will never go back to store bought! They are THAT good! And oh so easy to make! I got the basis of this recipe from one of my favorite food blogger, “What’s Gaby Cooking?” Check her out if you haven’t before. As always, I add my own flair to these, the most important part, “the glue” so to speak I kept the same as the original recipe.

Inredients

• 2 1/2 cups old fashion oats
• 1/2 cup raw whole almonds roughly chopped
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1/4 brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp chia seeds
• 1/4 cup chopped golden raisins
• 1/4 cup chopped dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup dried apricots

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cover a small cookie sheet (rimmed is probably best) with parchment paper. Add chopped almonds and oats to the cookie sheet and toast for 7-10 minutes.
3. While the oats are toasting… In a small sauce pan mix together honey, butter, sugar, vanilla, & chia seeds. Melt over medium heat, stirring often. When all the sugar has dissolved and the butter has melted, pour into a medium bowl and combine with the oats. Add your toppings and mix it all up!
4. Add the parchment paper to smallish-mediumish pan. This depends on how thick you want your granola bars to be. (Leave some of the paper sticking out on the sides so you can use it later to remove the oats.)
5. Add the oat mixture and flatten using a rubber spatula until the oats are even throughout the pan.
6. Put pan in fridge for 2 hours.
7. Using the sides of the parchment paper pull out of pan. Cut the granola into bars, squares, triangles, hexagons… (sorry got a little out of control there!)

To store, wrap individual bars in aluminum foil. Store in the fridge, but they do not need to be refrigerated, if that makes sense…. I like to throw a couple in my purse for the day to have on hand as snacks. They are very filling! If left out of the fridge they will not be hard.

Here are some of my favorite toppings…

• dried cranberries
• dried apricots
• golden raisins
• dried cherries
• mini chocolate chips (how good would dark chocolate chips be?!
• chia seeds are optional, but they are tasteless and will keep you extra full
• chopped walnuts
• chopped pecans
• shredded coconut

Basically any dried fruit would be super tasty. I just happen to like the tartest of the dried fruit family and have a giant Costco sized bag of almonds I need to use up.

Enjoy!