Homemade Granola Bars in 30 Minutes

Our family’s favorite healthy granola bar recipe is baked to chewy perfection and sweetened with honey. After much recipe testing, these are the homemade granola bars that made the cut with less sweetener than other recipes, using real food pantry ingredients, and ready in just 30 minutes. Using the mix-ins your family likes, these will become your go-to for snacks, lunchboxes, or quick breakfasts.

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This is another wonderful Pantry Basic Staple – recipes of foods we typically think of as only store bought, but that are actually better tasting, and of course better for you when you make them yourself. 

Granola bars. The store shelves are FULL of so many, from the classic crispy flat bars that came two to a package to the barrage of “chewy granola bars” that seemed to up the sugar content with some actually coated in chocolate. Um, isn’t that a candy bar?

Even so, the term “granola bar” still has a healthy association, doesn’t it? So much so that you can find whole sections of “healthy” bars with all nuts, all grain, only sweetened with dates, and so on. However, most still have long ingredient lists, questionable flavors, lots of sugar (or sugar substitutes) and tend to be more expensive (sometimes $4 for one bar!).

But granola bars are still one of the best ways to have a quality on-the-go snack, travel food, or meal replacement, especially when you can control the ingredients. So I began a quest to create a recipe that would stay moist and chewy, but not fall apart.

After trying what seemed like a million granola bar recipes, I came up with not one, but two that were just about perfect. A quick chewy no-bake granola bar and this hearty baked chewy granola bar.

Why two granola bar recipes? I like to make this baked granola bar recipe when I want a nutritionally dense, hearty bar that’s great to take hiking and for road trips. It’s also the one I make when I don’t have crispy rice cereal and granola to make the chewy no-bake bars. When I want quick bar, it’s great to have the no-bake option.

Which isn’t to say these baked bars are a second choice option – we LOVE them! They are just sweet enough, have great flavor, and are easy to customize. And with a 20 minute bake, it’s not like they take that much longer.

Even though they are baked, they are still chewy and these bars seem to stay fresher longer at room temperature than the no-bake variety, a plus for vacations.

All this is to say – I like having two go-to recipes for granola bars where I know the ingredients and can change them up with different flavors and add-ins. I hope you’ll try both and let me know if you also like the versatility of having two recipes!

Ingredient Notes

You’ll need the following ingredients to make this baked granola bar recipe:

The basic recipe is just six pantry ingredients with mix-ins added.

• Oats: Use whole, rolled oats for the best results.
• Butter: After more testing, the recipe is most consistent with all butter. If you’d like to use coconut oil to make these dairy free, see the FAQ section for options.
• Honey: Again, more testing indicated that the bars will hold together better with all honey (not using any maple syrup, which is less sticky), so now I only recommend honey in order for your bars to turn out like the bars pictured.
• Flour: I tested many recipes without flour and found that a little flour is what gives the chewy texture that holds together. To make the bars most healthy, use a whole wheat flour, but you can make them with any flour you have, including a 1:1 gluten free flour.
• Flax Meal: This is included for healthy omega-3 fats, fiber, and nutrients, but you can omit it if you don’t have any and replace it with an equal amount of flour.
• Mix-Ins: Choose 1 cup total for your mix-ins (though I use less mini chocolate chips because 1/2 cup seemed too many to us).

Favorite Mix-In Combos (ours and commenters):

• 1/3 cup chocolate chips + 1/2 cup sunflower seeds (or other seeds like whole flaxseeds, hemp, or chia)
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries + 1/2 cup chopped almonds
• 1/2 cup raisins + 1/2 cup chopped peanuts
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips + 1/4 cup pecans
• 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips + 1/3 sunflower seeds + 1/3 dried cranberries
• 1/3 cup dried cranberries + 1/3 cup raw pumpkin seeds + 1/3 cup chia seeds
• 1/2 cup dried currants + 1/2 cup peanuts
• 1/3 cup coconut + 1/3 cup flax seeds + 1/3 cup chia seeds

Let’s Make Homemade Granola Bars

Wondering how easy it is to make your own homemade granola bars? About as easy as mixing together a batch of bar cookies!

Dried Cranberry and Sunflower Seed Option show above

TIP: I like to cut these into long bars to resemble granola bars, either 16 or 20, but they are pretty big – and nutritionally dense – so you may want to cut them into smaller bars.

Mini Chocolate Chip and Chopped Peanut Option show above

Storage

• Room Temperature: You can keep these in an airtight container or individually wrapped for 4-5 days.
• Refrigerate for longer storage, 5-8 days.
• Freeze for even longer storage, up to 6 months.

TIP: When my kids were younger, I always wrapped these individually in parchment or in baggies to keep in the snack basket for easy grabbing. Now I simply keep them in an airtight container in the freezer because we eat them less often and freezing them means they are fresh whenever we want them.

I like to grab a bar to keep in my purse for long days in town running errands and they’re perfect in a backpack for a day of kayaking or hiking.

If you’ve got these waiting, there’s never a need for questionable store-bought bars, no matter how “natural” they proclaim to be. It’s so nice knowing exactly what is in what you’re eating, isn’t there?

Reader Raves

“These are so good. Tastes so much better than the ones at the grocery store, and my picky five year old loves snacking on them.” -Hannah

“I’ve made these many times and my family loves them! Thanks for sharing and love your site! I use it often for recipes.” -Brittany

“Just made these without flax meal, added 1 t. sea salt and my add ins were coconut, flax seeds and chia seeds, YUMMY!! Thanks for sharing!” -Cori

I hope you love this granola bar recipe as much as we do – make sure to leave a review to let me know!

Baked Granola Bar FAQs

More Homemade Snacks To Try

• Ultimate No-Bake Chewy Granola Bars
• Chocolate Chip Almond Granola Bites (+ Lots of Variations)
• Easy & Healthy Spiced Nuts
• Healthy Maple Sweetened Chili Pecans

This recipe has been updated – it was originally published in 2011 and updated in 2018.

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