The BEST Protein Bars are healthy, no-bake, and contain nothing artificial! These are chewy, delicious, easy to customize, and are the perfect healthy snack.
Looking for more healthy snacks? Try my Energy Balls, Applesauce, Carrot Muffins, or learn how to make The Perfect Charcuterie Board.
Why I love this recipe:
No Bake – No heating up the house, and only takes 10 minutes to throw the ingredients together and put in the fridge.
Healthy – Nothing artificial here. These bars are filled with normal pantry ingredients and sweetened with honey.
Taste Delicious – I've had one to many unappetizing protein bars in my life, so I'm all about making them from scratch, with ingredients I recognize, and they taste wonderful!
Ingredients in Protein Bars:
- Rolled Oats – quick oats would also work.
- Protein Powder – Add your favorite whey or plant based protein powder including Chocolate, vanilla, or plain flavored.
- Peanut Butter – or substitute any nut butter or sunflower butter.
- Honey – Naturally sweetened and no added sugar. You could substitute agave.
- Ground Flax Seed
- Banana – mashed, for sweetness flavor and binding.
- Salt
- Vanilla Extract
- Mix-Ins – I like to customize my bars with chopped dates, dried fruit (blueberries, cranberries, or raisins), mini chocolate chips, or unsweetened coconut flakes.
How to make Protein Bars:
Combine Ingredients: Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Press firmly into an 8×8 inch pan.
Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before cutting into bars.
Cut into bars and store in the fridge.
Freezing Instructions:
Layer bars in a freezer safe bag or container, with a piece of parchment paper between layers, and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator or on the counter before eating.
Recipe Variations:
- Mix-Ins: Customize these bars with your favorite mix-ins! Some ideas: chopped dates, dried fruit (blueberries, cranberries, or raisins), mini chocolate chips, unsweetened coconut flakes, crispy rice cereal, chopped nuts, or anything you like!
- Nut Butter: Swap out the peanut butter for almond butter, cashew butter, or sunflower butter.
- Protein Powder: Use your favorite kind. Chocolate, vanilla, or plain would all work great for this recipe!
- Vegan Protein Bars Recipe: Use your favorite vegan protein powder.
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Recipe
Protein Bars
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (135 g)
- 3/4 cup peanut butter , or favorite nut butter or sunflower butter (180 g)
- 1 banana , mashed (120 g)
- 1/3 cup honey , agave or real maple syrup (110 g)
- Pinch salt
- ½ cup ground flax seed (55 g)
- 1 cup protein powder* (120 g)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (10 ml)
- 3/4 cup Mix in options: chopped dates, dried fruit (blueberries, cranberries, or raisins), mini chocolate chips, unsweetened coconut flakes, nuts (about 90 g)
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients until well combined. Mixture should be fairly soft and not dry or crumbly. Add a splash of water or milk, or an extra drizzle of honey, if needed.
- Press very firmly into an 8×8 inch pan. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before cutting into bars.
- Store bars in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
Notes
Nutrition
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Since discovering your recipe I never buy protein bars again! Love how versatile the ingredients are. I often just use what is sitting in my cupboard and needs to be eaten. Also I mix whey protein with protein powders I bought that taste awful, to use them up. As I never have bananas in my house, I always replace it with applesauce and it tastes just as great. They last us for ~1,5 weeks. Also, I bake them at 160°C for 15 minutes or so – we like them even more this way. Thank you for the great recipe!
Plan to make but Is there a substitute for banana? Member of household doesn’t like the texture or taste. Thanks
We haven’t tested a banana substitute BUT applesauce should work! Let us know if you give it a try!
Most of the recipes sound good to me. Hope to try a few soon. thank you
Very tasty and feel good about the “real” ingredients. I made a couple changes only to use what I had on hand. I used monk fruit as my sweetener and used chia seeds in place of the flax. Also used natural peanut butter and a few drops of water. Will make again. Maybe with dried apples and cinnamon.
This recipe SUCKS!! It was so dry and tasted like leaves from outside. Never Again .
These are not just the best protein bars I have eaten but one of the tastiest bars I have ever eater-thank you!
As I am on a nutrition plan, it would be very helpful to know if calories etc. are based on a serving or a 100g basis. Many thanks
De-licious!!! My husband needs to eat when taking a night time med. the pharmacist recommended protein bars but I wanted to be able to control the sugar. The are great!
I made this recipe, I really love how easy it was to make and the bars are delicious.
How can I get it to bind better? The taste is great but they fell apart instantly.
Add a little more liquid, nut butter, or honey.
Mine turned out a little to good !!!! Me and my husband could not stop eating them lol
These are delicious. I switched the peanut butter to peanut butter powder for health purposes and just reconstituted it with water. I also used sugar-free chocolate chips. They are so good… No store-bought protein bar compares!