the best soft granola bars recipe

The best soft granola bars recipe

They are very very VERY easy. They are just the perfect amount of crunchy and salty-sweet. And maybe most importantly, they are soft and they actually stick together and they are delicious to eat.

Also, because the ingredients are so very basic, you can add or change them as needed. I’m guessing that you have most everything in the house right now: peanut butter, honey, pretzels, oats, and peanuts.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 2 cups twisted pretzels, crushed down to about 1 heaping cup
• 1/2 cup salted peanut halves
• 1 cup peanut butter (more as needed)
• 1/2 cup honey (more as needed)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Toss the oats, crushed pretzels, and salted peanut halves together in a large bowl.
2. Stir the peanut butter, honey, and vanilla together in a separate bowl until smooth and creamy. Pour the mixture over the dry ingredients in the other bowl. Stir until combined.
3. Press the bar mixture into a 9×9 inch pan lined with parchment paper (9×13 will work – it will just yield wider, flatter bars). Freeze for 30 minutes. Pull out of the pan and cut into bars. Store bars individually wrapped in the freezer for quick grab-and-go snacks.

NOTES

• After you mix everything together, it’s sort of up to you to make a judgement call about how you want your granola bars to be. A few options – 1) pulse half of the mixture through a food processor to change up the texture a bit. Stir it back in with the rest of the mix. This just helps it to have more interesting texture that holds together better. 2) Add more peanut butter or honey if things seem to dry or crumbly. 3) Add more oats or pretzels if the mix seems too heavy. 4) Mix in anything else you want! The is just the base – add dried fruit, chocolate chips, more nuts, seeds, whatever you like.
• I used Jif Creamy Natural Peanut Butter, so you may need different amounts depending on the type of peanut butter you use. Sometimes natural peanut butter is less sweet, less salty, and/or more oily, so just keep that in mind.