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Coconut Quinoa Granola Bars

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Coconut quinoa granola bars are chock full of tasty, nutritious ingredients for a healthy and hearty snack bar recipe. These bars are chewy with an almond butter and honey mixture binding together the oats, nuts, coconut flakes, and quinoa.

Coconut quinoa granola bars are chock full of tasty, nutritious ingredients for a healthy and hearty snack bar recipe. These bars are so chewy!

If I was stuck in a foxhole around ohhh, let’s say 3 pm, I’d choose to be stuck in there with these coconut quinoa granola bars.

There are plenty of reasons why, first off simply because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them since I made them. I’m always on the lookout for healthier snacks, so I bought coconut quinoa granola bars at the store awhile back. I really liked the flavor and the extra nutritious boost from the quinoa, but every time I bit into a bar, an avalanche of crumbs would come tumbling down. Unless I wanted to make a colossal mess everywhere I went, I needed to use both hands and at least one napkin. For a granola bar. Ridiculous.

These coconut quinoa granola bars are chewy – and basically crumb-less. Yes! The puffed rice cereal adds a nice crisp as you bite into them, with the coconut flakes and almond butter/honey mixture bringing the chewiness. Because of the filling, nutritious ingredients packed into these bars, each bite will take you a few extra moments to chew. They’re nutritious, and satisfying – I ate one around lunchtime and wasn’t hungry until dinner! I’m a total snacker, so anything that causes me to forgo my mid-afternoon snack is a big deal.

Coconut quinoa granola bars are chock full of tasty, nutritious ingredients for a healthy and hearty snack bar recipe. These bars are so chewy!

And the taste? Fab. There are a bunch of flavors happening here, but they all play so nicely together you won’t feel like they’re competing. These bars are just sweet enough for you not to think they’re intended to be a healthier snack. B is slowly warming to quinoa (a few months ago he could have played the “what the heck is qween-oh?” guy from that Bud Light commercial), and he couldn’t taste it in these bars at all. Of course he found out there was quinoa in them once he asked what those dots were, but by then he was a few bites in and that factoid wasn’t going to deter him. 🙂

Coconut quinoa granola bars are chock full of tasty, nutritious ingredients for a healthy and hearty snack bar recipe. These bars are so chewy!

With our big time road trip coming up, I’ve had snacks on the brain big time. Despite how much I love these bars and want to shout my love declaration from the rooftop, these babies won’t make the pack list for our trip. Their only teensy tiny drawback is that they’re best stored in the fridge, because the binding ingredients begin to lose their binding abilities as the bars warm. Maybe not the best road trip compadres for 2,000+ miles across the southern U.S. in the summertime.

But, I’m willing to bet that one of the first times I turn on my oven in TN will be to toast up some oats, nuts, and quinoa (thankfully we have A/C!).

Coconut Quinoa Granola Bars
 
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Author:
Recipe type: Snack
Yield: 12 bars
Ingredients
  • 1 3/4 cups old-fashioned oats
  • 1/4 cup sliced almonds, roughly chopped
  • 1/4 cup cashews, roughly chopped
  • 1/4 cup quinoa
  • 3/4 cup puffed rice cereal
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 1/3 cup almond butter
  • 1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3/4 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup sweetened coconut flakes
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line an 8" x 8" baking pan with parchment paper, ensuring there is extra parchment left over along two opposite sides of the pan so you can lift out the bars once finished.
  2. On an ungreased, rimmed baking sheet, evenly place oats, almonds, cashews, and quinoa. Toast for approximately 8-10 minutes, until oats, nuts, and quinoa are lightly golden and fragrant. A few times while toasting, use a spatula to flip everything over. Once toasted, add oats, nuts, and quinoa to a large mixing bowl. Add puffed rice cereal, and set bowl aside.
  3. In a small saucepan set over medium heat, add almond butter, oil, brown sugar, and salt. Cook until all ingredients are combined and the edges begin to bubble, stirring occasionally. This took a few minutes for me. Once liquid ingredients are bubbly, remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract.
  4. Pour liquid mixture into bowl with the oat mixture and stir well to evenly coat the dry ingredients. Stir in coconut flakes evenly.
  5. Pour mixture into your 8" x 8" pan, pressing down with a separate sheet of parchment paper over top to ensure that the bar layer is even and dense. Refrigerate bars for an hour or more. Once bars have solidified and would hold up to being cut, lift out parchment surrounding bars and place on cutting board. Cut into 12 bars.
Notes
Bars are best stored in the refrigerator, but can be stored at room temperature as well (they'll be a little bit less firm). Grabbing one out of the fridge before work and keeping it at room temp until mid-afternoon works great.

Adapted from Chewy Quinoa Granola Bars

Photos updated in January 2017 – same great recipe!

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Comments

    • Hi there! I’ve never substituted the oats here, but perhaps quinoa flakes would work? Or maybe using your favorite cereal in place of the oats? That would change the texture some but I’m sure they would still be good. I hope that helps, and please let me know if you give this recipe a try!

      Reply

  2. Ahhhhhhhh Yes Please. What a fantastic recipe, everyone is raving about Quinoa (to be honest I just haven’t been able to ‘love’ it like everyone says I should) so using it like this is prob going to tip over to the loving it side of the fence. My bro and sis in law are mad keen fit freaks, on their bikes up to 6hours a day, I bet this bar would be a really great food for them to pack on their journeys. I’ll let ya know after I’ve eaten them if Im good to be stuck in a hole with them. LOL! 🙂

    Reply

    • We were slow starters with quinoa, too, but we really started to love it once we prepared it with chicken or vegetable broth vs. just water. So much more flavor! I do love quinoa in these bars too, and here it’s even uncooked! Couldn’t be simpler. And I can’t even imagine biking three hours a day, let alone six! Yikes! They’d definitely need some serious fuel for those trips! 🙂

      Reply

    • Thanks Layla! The bars were definitely yummy indeed, and yup – new blog design! I appreciate the compliment! 🙂

      Reply

    • Haha thanks girl! The flavors work so well together – I’m super pleased with how they turned out! 🙂

      Reply

    • Yes – they are great, Jessica! I was curious to see how they would turn out but I was pleasantly surprised. The quinoa blends right in!

      Reply

    • Haha me too! Truthfully I love just about all desserts, but ones featuring coconut are some of my favorites! 🙂

      Reply

  8. Plenty of nuts, quinoa and coconut? These sound awesome! I love making granola bars at home – definitely need to try these out. I’m a big snacker so I like having lots of options : )

    Reply

    • I’m all about having options, too. One afternoon I’ll be craving something salty, and the next day I’ll be hankering for sweet snacks. These would definitely be great bars to have on hand!

      Reply

  9. Oooh! These sound delicious! I never thought to use quinoa in a granola, but I bet they give them great crunch. And a good amount of protein! And you know how much I love coconut. Can’t wait to try these : )

    Reply

    • Thanks! At first I thought it might be weird adding uncooked quinoa, but they’re crunchy, not too hard, and blend right in to all the flavors going on here. I’m a huge coconut fan too. The flakes add great flavor and the perfect amount of sweetness!

      Reply

    • Thanks Gayle! I was pleasantly surprised by how nicely the quinoa blended into these bars. They were so good, I’d be hard-pressed to make granola bars without them from now on! 🙂

      Reply

  11. Alyssa, you’ve got so many tasty and healthy ingredients in there (almonds, cashews, quinoa, rice, honey …) Such a great, sneaky idea to throw some quinoa grains in there, but my favourite part I have to say is the Rice Krispies or that little extra ‘oomph’! Love these!
    Maybe some date-based raw bars or bites would stay together better for your epic journey? You must be getting pretty excited now! All the best with the packing! 🙂

    Reply

    • Thanks Helen! I love the Rice Krispies in these bars. They add a subtle crunch that reminds me of biting into a Nestle Crunch bar – not a bad thing! And thank you for the date-based bar suggestion for our trip. They sound delicious, and I’ll definitely look into them! Now that the majority of our packing is done (loading up the moving container tomorrow!), we can take a breather and finalize the prep for our road trip. Super excited for that!

      Reply

  13. Hahahaha! I never thought about what I’d do if I was stuck in a foxhole before, but I’ll bet now that I’ve heard about these, they are definitely on my if “I’m stuck in a foxhole” must-have food list. With a dozen of these, I’d be willing to be there a while. 😉

    Reply

  14. I am an afternoon snacker and the Coconut Quinoa Granola Bars are the perfect sweet treat to keep me happy until dinner time.

    Reply

    • Thanks Chris! I couldn’t have been happier with how these bars turned out. Sneaky quinoa addition and all!

      Reply

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