Homemade Larabars

Have you ever had a Larabar? They are totally delicious! I haven’t had one in quite a while because they are way too expensive for my taste. Around here they are about $1-$1.50. THAT IS PER BAR! Wow. No thank you! The best thing about Larabars is that they have mimimal ingredients. Seriously, three to five ingredients. That’s it. I figured that since they only had a few ingredients, I could recreate them! I mean, why not right? They don’t use anything off the wall, just nuts and dried fruit (occasionally other things but I just went off the bars I have tried). My homemade Larabars came out SO good. I was totally impressed. I use these as meal replacements or make them smaller and have them as snacks. They are pretty simple – the worst part is the cleanup! If you are looking for a healthy snack bar, you really should try these!

Ingredients:

Almond and Cashew Bars

• 1/3 cup cashews
• 1/3 cup almonds
• 1 cup chopped dates

Cherry Bars

• 1/2 cup dates
• 1/2 cup dried cherries
• 2/3 cup nuts (I normally use almonds, but use whatever you like!)

Chocolate Chip Cashew Bars

• 2/3 cup dates
• 1/2 cup cashews
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons chocolate chips (mini ones work best)

So, for any of the bars you are going to make, the first thing you want to do is get some plastic wrap out. You could also use a sandwich bag (that’s what I did!), but you want to have it out and ready. This is what you are going to use to shape your bars.

For these bars, I used my Magic Bullet.

I adore this little baby. It’s perfect for so many things. If you aren’t lucky enough to own one, you can use a food processor. So now you want to place your fruit in your blender/food processor/magic bullet. Blend it up until it’s a sort of thick paste.

I will note really quick that I love dates, but sometimes they seem a bit too sweet. For most of the bars I make now, I use a mix of dates and prunes. This makes the bars a bit stickier. The bars made with just dates will get pretty hard in the fridge, but the ones where I use a mix, they will be a bit softer. Try it out with just dates at first and if you think it’s too sweet, try substituting in some prunes.

Take your gooey dried fruit paste and place it in a bowl. Next, put your nuts in your blender/food processor/magic bullet. An important note here – don’t turn them into nut butter! Just pulse them until they are chopped up. They don’t need to be perfect or super fine. You could also chop them up by hand if you want.

Toss your chopped up nuts in with your gooey dried fruit paste.

Here you could had a dash of cinnamon for extra flavor, but I love them just the way they are. If you are making the Chocolate Chip bar, now you want to add in the vanilla and chocolate chips. Mix everything together. I normally use a spatula because it gets super messy. Now you want to divide them up. The recipes here make about 4 bars each. Another note though – you don’t have to make bars! You can roll them into balls or shape them into little squares.

Place your gooey mess in your ziploc bag or plastic wrap. Shape them however you want. They don’t have to be perfect, just smush em around until you like em!

Once I have mine all made into pretty little bars, I store them in a ziploc bag in the fridge. I like waiting until they have been in the fridge overnight to eat them. They are a little more firm by then so they are easier to carry around (I normally eat them at school).

These cute little homemade Larabars are outta this world! You save money making them yourself and I think it’s always nice to know exactly how your food is made! Feel free to play around with different types of bars – you can totally make your own. There are so many options so be creative! Oh and my favorite is BY FAR the Almond and Cashew Bar. Delicious!

Related posts:

1. Homemade Tortillas

Tags: featured, fruit, nuts, snack

Category: Snacks