Chewy Granola Bars

  • Prep Time: 15 mins
  • Total Time: 40 mins
  • Yield: 16bars
  • About This Recipe

    “I “borrowed” this recipe from the kitchen at my college because I fell in love with these bars. They are so much better than store-bought, and you can add or subtract ingredients as you wish. They make a perfect on-the-go snack; a much healthier alternative to chips or cookies, especially for kids (Great for lunch boxes!)”

    Ingredients

  • 1cupfirmly packed brown sugar
  • 1/4-1/2 cup butter or 1/4-1/2 cupmargarine, softened
  • 1/4 cupsugar
  • 2tablespoonshoney
  • 1/2 teaspoonvanilla
  • 1largeegg
  • 1cupall-purpose flour
  • 1teaspooncinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoonbaking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoonsalt
  • 1 1/4 cupscrisp rice cereal( Rice Krispies)
  • 1cupchopped almonds
  • 1cupsemi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 1/2 cupsrolled oats
  • raisins(optional)
  • Directions

  • Preheat oven to 350° and lightly grease or spray 9 x 13 pan.
  • In large bowl, beat brown sugar, sugar, and butter until light and fluffy.
  • Blend in honey, vanilla and egg.
  • In separate bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.
  • Add flour mixture gradually to sugar mixture and beat until combined.
  • By hand, stir in almonds, chocolate chips and oats until well mixed.
  • Press mixture firmly in bottom of greased pan, and bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes, or until light golden brown.
  • Cool and cut into squares.
  • Reviews

  • “This is a most excellent recipe. My family said they were better than any granola bar from a store! Very easy to make. You could do it with your kids if you have some. Note: I cut the sugar to 1 cup and used organic, I used whole wheat pastry flour instead of white, used only half the chocolate chips and replaced the other half with coconut.Nevertheless! Chewy, moist, and flavorful and very sweet! A big must if you’re looking for that granola bar! Thanks!”

  • “This was fantastic. I made a few changes to make it a bit more healthy. I reduced the sugar to 3/4c of brown sugar, added only a tbsp of honey, 1/2 c of chocolate chips, used whole wheat flour, and instead of rice crispies I used the Original Fiber One cereal. Cooked for only 17 minutes. They’re great!”

  • “This recipe is fabulous. My husband gobbled up the bars that I made for the kids!”

  • “My family loves these granola bars.As suggested by others, I used less sugar (about 3/4 cup brown sugar, no white sugar) and they were excellent.They’re a special lunchbox treat for my son :)”

  • “This is more like a cookie bar, but YUMMY nonetheless.Soooo chewy and so easy to make.I omitted the almonds and cinnamon, upped the vanilla to 1tsp, used corn syrup in place of honey cuz that’s what i had and used butterscotch chips and a handful of coconut.Next time i will omit the white sugar as well and up the oats and rice krispies.”

  • “This is a great recipe and I might add, very versatile.I didnt have any rice krispies, and my family hates raisins…so I Increased the amount of oats and added some walnuts, pecans and sunflower seeds.If you choose to do this, decrease the amount of chocolate.Great taste and I loved the ease of it!”

  • “These are really good (and chewy) granola bars; very easy to make.Following the lead of other reviewers, we also cut down on the sugar and substituted coconut for the almonds.I mis-read the recipe and added 2 cups of the rice krispies, but the recipe is so forgiving that it worked out just fine.I think I may try reducing the brown sugar and adding a bit of peanut butter next time.My daughter helped to add the last few ingredients and pat the dough into the pan.Great recipe!”

  • “Yum!Very easy, chewy and makes a lot of bars.I like these because you can use whatever you have on hand so they will probably turn out differently each time.I will be making these again!My kids, my husband and I all liked these.”

  • “Per the other reviews, I used omitted the white sugar.We are allergic to nuts so I substituted Grape Nut cereal for the almonds, and whole wheat flour.Tasted like a cookie, very sweet.Next time I will reduce the amount of brown sugar to 3/4 cup and up the rice crispie cereal to 2 cups because that adds a little airy crunch.We had it for a dessert after dinner.I suggested reducing the amount of chocolate chips but the kids said NO.Thank you for a great recipe.”

  • “I made these last night for DD to take to a lacrosse game for her and her friends.These are excellent.I wrapped them up in waxed paper and they are a great take along treat.I didn’t use the raisins and subbed butterscotch chips for the chocolate ones.Delicious.Thank you for sharing with us.”

  • “Super good. Easy enough for the 3 year old to help. The kids loved them.”

  • “Certified seal of approval from my whole family. I used whole wheat flour, dropped the chocolate chips, and added craisins. They are amazing! I’m planning to expirement with peanut butter next time around. And, I’ll try other stuff as well. These are just perfect!”

  • “These are so delicious. My kids ate them all up in one day. I told them I will hide it next time so they are not gone the same day. I will be making it again. Thanks for sharing.”

  • “Call it a “Granola Bar” if it makes you feel better about consuming it, but this is really just a chocolate chip-oatmeal cookie in bar form.It’s a great recipe and really tasty, especially with the addition of the Rice Krispies, but it would definitely benefit from some healthful tweaks, like others have done, using whole wheat flour, less sugar, less butter, using mini choc. chips (and less of them), etc.It’s really a good recipe and one I’ll make again but not for fulfilling my family’s craving for a “healthy snack.””

  • “I made these for my kids to take to school. Since my son is allergic to tree nuts I omitted the almonds, and adjusted the chocolate chips to only 1/4 cup (but added a handful of M&M’s!) This is an easy recipe to follow, or change up a bit. Tasty!”

  • “Oh, wow!!I wish I could give this 10 stars!!To me, these were so much better than store bought.The kids liked them for the first day or so, but prefer chocolate covered ones.My son said they had too many chocolate chips in them, so next time I’ll use half the chips, melted, to drizzle over the top, instead.I found myself eating them for snacks as well as breakfast.Awesome recipe!!”

  • “I don’t know how I missed it, but in the Directions there wasn’t any step to include the rice crispie cereal so I totally forgot about it. These still turned out fabulously. Talk about a versatile recipe! Followed everything else, but took out chocolate chips, did 1 cup organic currants and all white whole wheat flour. Fantastic!!!”

  • “Texture is excellent. I’ve put all the butter required (non-hydrogenated margarine) and left out the sugar (just the brown sugar was already a lot, it is very sweet). I used whole wheat flour.I found that the cinnamon gave a strange taste, next time I’ll leave out.”

  • “I’d never made granola/granola bars before, so I read many of the reviews and followed some of their advice: less sugar, 1/4 c butter 1/2 applesauce, wheat flour. And I changed some of the add-ins to suit my tastes – walnuts, dark choc chips (/12 cup), 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut, and bing cherries.It’s a pretty forgiving recipe, and the bars come out VERY tasty!”

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