Perfectly Chewy Granola Bars

4.50 from 2 votes

These chewy granola bars are the perfect healthy snack for kids and adults. They're gluten-free, nut-free, easy to make and great for meal prep!

Prep Time10

Chill Time2

Total Time2 10

Course: Breakfast/Snack

Cuisine: American

Diet: Gluten Free

Servings:

Add butter, honey, brown sugar and salt to a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Heat until mixture starts to foam.
Remove from heat and add vanilla
Add oats, chia seeds, cereal and cranberries in a medium mixing bowl. Toss to combine.
Pour honey mixture over the oat mixture and toss to combine.
Let sit for 10 minutes and then stir in the chocolate chips.
Press bars into an 8x8 square baking dish, making sure to press them down as hard as possible. As you press, aadd a few mini chocolate chips on top to make them look pretty.
Place in the fridge to set for at least 2 hours. Cut into bars and enjoy.

Brown rice cereal – If you can’t find brown rice crisp cereal you can use regular Rice Krispies or simply sub 1/2 cup of oats for the cereal.
Butter – If you don't have butter, or want to keep this recipe dairy-free, you could use coconut oil as an alternative. It just won't have the same richness that the butter adds to these bars.
Chia seeds – You can totally skip these if you don’t have any on hand or use another type of seed in their place, such as flax seeds or hemp seeds.
Different sweeteners – I've made these bars with maple syrup instead of honey and they turned out great. If you don't have brown sugar on hand coconut sugar should work just fine.
Add-ins – Feel free to customize these granola bars with your favorite mix-in's. Skip the chocolate chips or substitute them with chopped nuts/seeds like almonds, pecans, walnuts or sunflower seeds. And you can substitute the cranberries with other dried fruits like raisins, dates, dried cherries or dried apricots.