These homemade granola bars are Gluten and Nut free. A chewy, chocolaty treat that contains healthy ingredients.

Granola bars are quick and easy to make. They are the perfect snack to make ahead of time and take with you when you’re on the go.

Gluten & Nut Free Granola Bars - homemade, chewy & chocolaty

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Ingredients & Equipment
Ingredient Notes
How to Make Homemade Granola Bars
Recipe FAQs
More Snack Recipes from Green Homemaking
Recipe Card

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Perfect for people with allergies
Great lunchbox snack
Healthy treat that feels indulgent

Ingredients

½ cup (75g) salted butter
¼ cup (80g) honey
½ cup (80g) coconut sugar (or light brown sugar)
2 tbsp vanilla extract
2 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
2.5 cups (225g) gluten free porridge oats
4 tbsp ground flaxseeds
4 tbsp freeze dried raspberries (or other small dried fruit)
1 tsp cocoa powder
¼ cup (45g) chocolate chips

Equipment

Ingredient Notes

I really struggled to find a granola bar recipe that didn’t use peanut or almond butter, so I’ve created my own recipe. My family really enjoy these chewy bars and I’m sure yours will too.

Cocoa Powder – We are big fans of chocolate here, but you can leave out the cocoa powder if you prefer and the bars will still taste great.

Gluten Free Oats – In order to make these granola bars gluten free you will need to use gluten free rolled porridge oats. Depending on what brand you buy, some oats are larger than others.

You want your oat flakes to be as small as possible. So if they look quite large, I would recommend giving them a quick blitz in a blender first.

Sugar – If you cannot find coconut sugar, then light brown sugar can be used instead.

Butter, Honey & Salt – Try and use good quality butter, honey and salt when possible. I like to use pink Himalayan salt or Celtic sea salt in recipes, as it contains more minerals than refined table salt.

Flaxseeds – I used a ground flaxseed mixture in this recipe. Flaxseeds are a good source of fibre. You could replace with chia seeds or just leave them out all together.

Dried Fruit – Freeze dried raspberries are a nice addition to this recipe, but again you can leave these out if you would prefer.

Freeze dried strawberries, or other types of dried fruit such as raisins, cranberries or desiccated coconut, would also work well in this recipe.

How to Make Homemade Granola Bars

Step 1

Add the butter, sugar and honey to a Dutch oven or saucepan and set the temperature to a medium-high heat. Keep stirring until the mixture has melted and formed a syrup like texture.

Sugar, butter and honey in a Dutch oven pan

Melted sugar, butter and honey in a Dutch oven pan

Step 2

Turn off the heat and add the vanilla extract, cinnamon and salt to the pan. When you add the vanilla extract it will start to bubble. Mix well.

Adding the vanilla to the melted ingredients causing it to bubble

Step 3

Add the oats, flaxseeds, freeze dried raspberries and cocoa powder and mix well to combine all of the ingredients (don’t add the chocolate chips yet).

Adding the dry ingredients to the melted ingredients

Step 4

Use parchment paper to line two loaf tins (or an 8×8” baking pan), then use a large spoon to transfer the ingredients from the pan into the tin.

Spread the mixture out evenly so it reaches the edges of the tin.

Granola mixture inside two parchment lined loaf tins

Step 5

When the granola mixture has cooled slightly, add the chocolate chips.

Granola mixture inside two parchment lined loaf tins with chocolate chips on top

Step 6

Fold over the sides of the parchment paper and gently press the mixture down into the tin to help it all stick together.

Hand pressing down mixture inside loaf tin using the parchment paper

Step 7

Put the granola mixture a fridge for 2 hours, or a freezer for 1 hour until it’s set firm.

Step 8

Once the mixture has set, remove it from the tin and cut the granola into 12 individual bars.

Two chocolate granola bars on a pink speckled plate

Recipe FAQs

How to store homemade granola bars

Once you have cut your granola mixture into slices you can leave them wrapped in the parchment paper and store them in an air tight container in the fridge for up to a week.

You can also wrap them in individual sheets of parchment paper so they can easily be put into lunchboxes.

These granola bars can be frozen for up to 2 months. I recommend wrapping them individually in parchment paper before freezing so that they don’t stick together.

Once you remove them from the freezer, allow them to thaw out for at least 20 minutes before eating.

Substituting ingredients

This recipe is pretty flexible in terms of the dry ingredients you can add or remove depending on your preference.

Freeze dried raspberries are a nice addition to this recipe, but you can leave these out if you would prefer.

Freeze dried strawberries, or other types of dried fruit such as raisins, cranberries or desiccated coconut, would also work well in this recipe.