This homemade granola bar recipe is super easy to make and full of flavor.
In addition, these bars are super healthy, with only 5 Weight Watchers SmartPoints!
These days, it seems to be more and more difficult to find the time to prepare healthy snacks.
For example, usually, on my way out the door, I’ll grab a banana and a protein bar.
However, eating the same store-bought protein bar every morning gets boring.
As a matter of fact, I truly prefer eating something homemade over processed foods.
Granola Bar Recipe with popcorn
So, when I found this granola bar recipe in my All You Magazine, I thought it looked delicious.
In addition, I checked the nutrition information and calculated that these bars only have 5 Weight Watchers SmartPoints per bar.
Clearly, I had to make them!
I made my granola bars in a baking dish, refrigerated them, and then cut up the bars.
Although this method works fine, I found this Tescoma mold for energy bars, granola bar press on Amazon.
It’s very compact and doesn’t require cutting up the bars.
It also saves a ton of room in the refrigerator.
With 3 silicone trays that stack on top of each other, you can store them in the refrigerator very easily.
You can even use the silicone trays in the oven if you’re making bars that require baking.
And it comes with a recipe book of healthy snack bar recipes.
Homemade Granola Bar Recipe
Homemade Granola Bar Recipe with Popcorn – 5 Weight Watchers SmartPoints
Ingredients
- - 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- - 3/4 cup almonds, chopped (I used slivered)
- - 8 cups plain popped popcorn, I used Healthy Pop microwave popcorn
- - 2 cups rolled oats, do not use instant
- - 1 cup chocolate chips, I used Nestle Peanut Butter & Milk Chocolate Morsels
- - 3/4 cup honey
- - 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
- - 1/4 tsp. salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread coconut on an ungreased rimmed baking sheet and bake until lightly toasted, stirring once or twice, about 5 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a bowl to cool. Wipe off baking sheet and spread almonds on it. Bake until golden brown and fragrant, 5 to 7 minutes, stirring once or twice. Transfer to bowl with coconut to cool.
- Mist a 9"x13" baking dish with cooking spray. In a large bowl, combine popped popcorn, oats, coconut, almonds, & chocolate chips; stir well.
- In a small pan over low heat, combine honey, brown sugar & salt. Cook, stirring, until sugar dissolves, approximately 5 minutes. Pour honey mixture over popcorn mixture; stir until all ingredients are well coated. Transfer mixture to baking dish. Using lightly moistened palms, firmly press mixture into baking dish. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before cutting into bars.
Notes
Fat 3 g
Saturated fat 1 g
Protein 2 g
Carbohydrates 26 g
Fiber 2 g
Cholesterol 0 mg
Sodium 26 mg
how do you get granola bars to stick together?
I was worried that I’d make this recipe and all the ingredients would fall apart and not stick together in a ‘bar’ form.
However, the 2 necessary ingredients to get granola bars to stick together are the honey and the brown sugar.
Also, be sure that the honey & brown sugar mixture is still warm.
It acts as a glue to form the granola bars, with the refrigeration ‘sealing’ them together.
Tweaks to the Original healthy snack bars Recipe
I changed the All You Magazine recipe up a little bit.
In particular, instead of adding raisins and dried apricots, I used peanut butter & milk chocolate morsels.
Surprisingly, there are less carbs in the morsels than there are in the raisins & apricots!
Toasting the coconut and almonds really added a nice flavor to the snack bars.
The honey & brown sugar syrup ‘glued’ the rest of the ingredients together.
Easy to Make Homemade Granola Bar Recipe
These were extremely easy to make!
AND the recipe made a LOT!
The Size of the healthy Snack Bars Matters
I cut 14 bars instead of 24 because I wanted them to look similar to the protein bars you buy in the grocery store.
But mine were a lot thicker.
Obviously, if you cut less bars, remember to add more Weight Watchers SmartPoints to each bar.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Heaven
Because I’m a chocolate-peanut butter fanatic, I LOVED swapping out the raisins & apricots for the chocolate-peanut butter chips.
Needless to say, you can really experiment with this recipe to add in your own favorite flavors.
Cut these puppies into bars and put them into ziplock baggies and you’ve got yourself some great guilt-free, on-the-go snack bars!
If you’re looking for other Weight Watchers recipes that are easy to make and fit in with your food plan, check out Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook 2020-2021 (Amazon).
And for more tried and true Weight Watchers recipes on our blog, check out:
Weight Watchers No Bake Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies – 4 SmartPoints
Lemon Squares – 3 Weight Watchers Points
Chocolate Root Beer Float – 4 Weight Watcher’s PPV
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They were yummy! Thanks for letting me sample!
Thank you Celeste!