Vegan, Gluten-Free Travel+ Carrot Cake Oatmeal Bars
Does anyone else ever feel like they are always on the lookout for the best granola bar? When I travel I tend to stock up on vegan, gluten-free granola/ energy bars, but many store-bought brands are often filled with tons of sugar and the ones with better ingredients can be a little pricey.
My boyfriend’s go-to travel snack is the carrot cake flavored Cilff Bar. While it’s a better option than most gas-station picks, it’s still highly processed and filled with quite a bit of sugar. Today’s recipe for Carrot Cake Oatmeal Bars was inspired by his favorite snack but these bars full of wholesome ingredients and superfoods for energy, plus no refined sugar. Traveling or not, they make a great breakfast, snack or dessert and are super yummy!
Carrot Cake Oatmeal Bars
makes about 12 bars
What you’ll need:
- 1 cup rolled oats (gluten-free oats)
- 1/2 cup chopped nuts (I used almonds)
- 3 tbs chia seeds
- 1/4 cup chopped dates or raisins
- 3/4 cup shredded carrots (about 2 large carrots)
- 1 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk
- 2 tbs agave
- 1 tbs vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup coconut oil, softened
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp allspice
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- optional– coconut butter for topping
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 325°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Combine all ingredients in a large bowl until thoroughly mixed. Spread mixture evenly over baking sheet, about 1/2″ thick. Use your hands to form batter into a rectangular shape.
- Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool completely (you can pop it in the refrigerator to speed this up).
- Once completely cool, use a sharp knife to cut into bars.
- To add coconut butter icing, place jar of coconut butter in bowl of warm water for 5 minutes to soften it. Stir until completely liquid, then spread over bars or use a pastry bag (or plastic baggie with the end cut off) to draw lines across the bars.
- Store in the refrigerator and enjoy!
I had these bars (below) topped with peanut butter, coconut butter and cacao nibs for breakfast and they were seriously amazing!
Oh that looks great!! Do you think you cold sub oil for applesauce – or would it fall apart?
I haven’t tried substituting applesauce, although I’ve done a similar recipe where I used a mashed banana in place of coconut oil and that work well! Could be worth a shot with the applesauce, let me know if you try it! 🙂
Look delicious!! Can’t wait to try these!
just bought chia seeds today. perfect timimg!
I can’t get over how tasty these look! They sound like the perfect breakfast treat or after-workout snack, I’d love to give this recipe a go!
Hope you enjoy 🙂
these look great, and best of all, I have all of the ingredients!
1/4 what of coconut oil? 1/4 cup? It doesn’t say
Oops! yes, it’s 1/4 cup 🙂
awesome! looking forward to trying these and thanx for sharing 😉
Hello!
Is the baking step necessary? I think with these kind of ingredients, it’s possible to skip this step?
Hm.. I think you could probably make these as “no-bake” bars instead. I would reduce the amount of milk though and maybe add a nut butter to bind everything? Let me know how it goes!
I made these last night and they are a huge success! My boyfriend lives on pasta and fast food if I don’t make an active effort to get some protein and vitamins in him, but he’s super picky so I always had to buy these super expensive protein bars that he’d actually like. Your recipe, however, he loves! I threw in a bunch of protein powder, so I can sub the expensive storebought bars with these. You saved me a lot of money AND got someone to eat more vegetables, so thank you!
AMAZING!! That’s so great to hear. I’ll have to try using protein powder in my next batch!