Almond butter and banana Granola bars

What can I say about these granola bars?...Just sensational. These have no added sugar, are super healthy, chewy, and are just perfect. These are not the typical hard and super crispy granola bars you find at your local supermarkets, which by the way it comes from all of the refined sugar added to them, NOT GOOD!!

These are just great as a snack, which my son take to school and loves them, or for breakfast on the go. Next time I will double the batch for sure they are that good!!

These granola bars are the bake version I made a couple of days ago. While I made both baked and no baked versions I think the other ones were still super good as well. I was not able to get decent pictures for the no bake version ones but because they were so good I will be making them again soon. For sure I will be capturing some nice pictures then to be able to post the recipe in the blog..... so stay tuned!!

You can add what ever dry fruit and nuts you prefer to these granola bars. The mix ins are endless so get creative and let me know what you come up with.

Enjoy!!

I mashed the bananas with a potato masher. You can do as well with a fork.

Here you can see the roughly chopped almonds ( I used sliced almonds because I did not have whole ones) with the dry fruit. Then the remainder of the ingredients in the bowl before and after mixing them with a spatula. Not hard at all to do!!

Here you can see before and after baking the granola bars which took about 25-30 minutes.

The granola bars are suppose to turn a bit brown around the edges. That is what you want, just be careful not to burn them though. I used wax paper to wrap the granola bars in and then store them in the fridge for future consumption. These are great for my son as a snack for school. He loves them!!

Like I said before, you can add any nuts or dry fruit of your choice. The combinations are endless!!

Ingredients

Yields 8 large bars

1/ 2 cup almond butter
2 bananas, mashed
1/2 cup almonds
1/4 cup dried apricots
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup mixed seeds, I used raw pumpkin and sunflower seeds
1 cup regular oats
2 tablespoons flax seed meal

Preheat oven to 350F. Line 8x8 baking square pan with parchment paper.

In a small pot heat almond butter and mashed bananas. Stir gently until well combined. Set aside. ( It takes about a couple of minutes or so)

In a food processor, coarse chop the almonds, apricots, and cranberries. Transfer to a bowl. Mix in seeds and oats. Fold in the almond butter mixture. Press the batter into the prepared baking pan.

Bake for 25-30 minutes. Let granola cool before cutting into bars. Wrap each one and store in the fridge.

Adapted from Anja's food 4 thought

Nutrition facts calculated based on the recipe giving 8 servings. This is high in manganese and magnesium.