Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola Bars

These granola bars are so delicious! They are the perfect little snack to sneak in your lunch bag. 
The recipe I adapted this from called for making the granola in an 8x8 inch pan, but to be honest that's just not enough granola bars for me so I doubled the recipe. The first time I made them, as you can see, it wasn't enough to fill the whole cookie sheet. So I adjusted the recipe and made a second batch (in a different flavor) and it fit just right!

Ingredients: 

• 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 3/4 cup crushed pretzels
• 2 to 3 cups Cocoa Krispies - you can use any cereal! If you use a smaller cereal lean toward 3 cups. 
• 1 cup chocolate chips
•  3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup honey
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spread oats on a cookie sheet. Bake until the oats are lightly toasted, shaking the pan halfway through, about 10-15 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl. Add cereal, pretzels, and chocolate chips; toss to combine.

Combine peanut butter, brown sugar, honey, vanilla and salt in a small saucepan. Over medium-low heat, stir frequently until the mixture bubbles lightly, 2 to 5 minutes. If you prefer your granola bars to be less sweet, omit the brown sugar. 

Line a cool cookie sheet with aluminum foil and coat with cooking spray.

Immediately pour the peanut butter mixture over the dry ingredients and mix with a  spatula until well mixed. Transfer onto the cool cookie sheet and press the mix down firmly to make an even layer. Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes; cut into bars. 

OR Build your own!

The base recipe of these granola bars is oats and the peanut butter mixture. If you would prefer to mix it up you can replace the cereal, pretzels, and chocolate chips with the following:

• Nuts
• Dried Fruit
• Sunflower seeds
• Flax seeds
• M&M’s
• Marshmallows
• Graham Crackers –Goldfish makes a whole line of Grahams even a vanilla cupcake flavor!

My second batch was a PB and J flavored granola made with extra oats, honey graham goldfish, and raisins. -adapted from Eating Well. 


I decided not to include nutritional information on this recipe because there are so many ingredient options. If you would like to find out, you can use the recipe finder on myfitnesspal.com