I am more excited about this recipe than I have been about almost any other post until now. For months, I have been playing around with recipes to make a homemade, kid-approved, easy to make, all natural, raw, gluten-free, dairy-free, portable energy bar that isn’t too messy. After months of trial and error (mainly error) and a messy kitchen, I stumbled upon a recipe that is not only easy to make, but tastes great and meets all of my other requirements (and they cost less to make than conventional energy bars too).
Why make an energy bar, you ask? There are so many already out there to choose from! There are several problems really… (a) many of these bars contain fillers, chemicals and artificial flavorings, and (b) these bars have to be shipped and stored on a shelf, so they must contain preservatives.
Don’t believe me? Here is the list of ingredients from Clif Bar’s own website for their Chocolate Almond Fudge Bar:
Ingredients: Organic Brown Rice Syrup, Organic Rolled Oats, ClifPro® (Soy Rice Crisps [Soy Protein Isolate, Rice Flour, Barley Malt Extract], Organic Roasted Soybeans, Organic Soy Flour), Organic Evaporated Cane Juice, Chocolate Chips (Evaporated Cane Juice, Unsweetened Chocolate, Cocoa Butter, Soy Lecithin, Natural Flavors), Almond Butter, Dry Roasted Almonds, Organic Fig Paste, Cocoa, ClifCrunch® (Apple Fiber, Organic Oat Fiber, Organic Milled Flaxseed, Inulin [Chicory Extract], Psyllium), Sea Salt, Natural Flavors.
Besides the fact that the word “soy” appears on that label five times, the first ingredient is brown rice syrup. If the first ingredient is a concentrated, high-carbohydrate syrup that is made from a grain, the rest can’t be good!
I looked for better options, but most bars have a similar ingredient list to this one. Powerbar had almost the same ingredients, as did Clif’s other products. Check your favorite bar and let me know what is in it! I did find one bar that was pretty good, the Larabar. Unfortunately, Larabars are rather expensive, and being a do-it-yourselfer, I wanted to figure out a homemade version anyway. The end result is an improvement on the Larabar, in my opinion.
This recipe is incredibly easy to make, takes very little time, has countless variations and has few ingredients. Kids love it and it can be a great alternative to the snacks that kids usually get!
Uses for the Wellness Bar: Fast on the go meal, delicious snack for kids, easy dessert, camping or hiking food, energy bar for sustained workouts, and non-messy food for road trips.
Wellness Energy Bars Recipe
Ingredients
Instructions
- Put nuts into a food processor and chop into small pieces.
- Remove and put in bowl.
- Put dates and raisins (or any combination of the two that equals ½ cup total) into the food processor and pulse until playdough consistency. It will start to clump together when it is done.
- Add fruit paste to the chopped nuts and mix them by hand until well incorporated and the consistency of stiff playdough or cookie dough. You could also do this in the food processor.
- Roll between two sheets of wax paper to ½ inch thickness and cut into bars. Or make it really easy and just roll into energy balls!
- Wrap in wax paper, plastic wrap, or snack size ziploc bags (or glass containers if you aren't giving to kids) and store in the refrigerator until ready to use.
- Enjoy!
Nutrition
Like this recipe? Check out my new cookbook, or get all my recipes (over 500!) in a personalized weekly meal planner here!
UPDATE: I’ve also now made a chia seed energy bar that I like at least this much or better. Here’s the recipe.
Ever made your own energy bars? Let me know what you think of these below!
Natural Tile and Grout Cleaner
»
These are really good. Ds was away from home for a while and started eating Clif bars. I think I talked him out of that and some bread with lots of soy in it. If I keep something like this around when I have enough of the ingredients, it should help.
I recently found your blog, and I decided to make these for my husband b/c he takes “fiber” bars for breakfast each day. Unfortunately (well, not exactly) my 2 daughters can’t stop eating them. My 2 year old keeps asking for more candy bar. Thanks for sharing your knowledge & your mission.
Hi, this is a great site! Thanks for sharing your wealth of knowledge. Someone else asked about soaking nuts. Not sure, maybe I missed the post (am new here), but is there more info about it? I’m pretty much “scared” of eating nuts now.. How does one soak and dry nuts without a dehydrator? I live in the Netherlands and things go VERY different around here.. Sigh..
You can soak normally and just dehydrate in an oven on the lowest
setting for a few hours. Hope that helps some!
I just found your blog and I am literally in love with it. It is “my face” really :))) Thank you for your generosity, go on sharing your knowledge.
Just made these without a food processor, with raw walnuts, but added 3 more dates, a tablespoon of shredded coconut and another tablespoon of milled flax seed! they are so yummy!!! 🙂 I was going to add the cinnamon but forgot! oops, any chance to use cinnamon I go for. Cant wait to garb one before or after my dance classes or a bike ride. 🙂
Do these freeze well if I were to do a large batch to freeze and then thaw when needed?
I’ve only tried freezing them once, but it seemed to work great!
These look less messy than mine – I always accidentally add too much coconut oil (I’m too lazy to measure precisely). I love to add shredded coconut and cocoa powder too – I feel like I’m eating a candy bar!
Even better-tasting than I had hoped…it’s amazing that there’s not any added sugar/honey. Really excellent and just in time for a weekend sports’ meet. Thanks so much for sharing! =)
Made another batch of “energy balls” this afternoon:
1/2 c shredded coconut
1 c soaked/dried almonds chopped finely in processor
1.5 c raisins–chopped in processor
1T warm coconut oil
Dried Apricots and cashews with coconut is yummy too!
Looks great! Should the nuts be soaked first?
It is better to soak them overnight and then dry them in the oven the next day. Post on that coming soon!