Healthy Granola Bars

                                       

They are super healthy, delicious and just heavenly!!! My homemade granola bars are super healthy, loaded with nutrition’s, delicious and travel friendly too. Flavor of seeds and dry fruits, loaded with fiber and protein…. It’s a sweet treat for everyone. Whether it is dry fruits or seeds, chocolate or nuts, sugar or jaggery, salt or sweet, believe me the possibilities are endless. 

These baked bars are chewy and soft packed with power and cleaner ingredients, much way better than store brought.  You can customize this recipe however you like. You can add a number of things into this. These are good snack options, absolutely kid friendly as I have added dates and jaggery instead of white or brown sugar. Kids will love to eat this with milk & they can carry it as snack in school tiffin. 

Healthy & powerful ingredients

Personally, I love jaggery very much and use it as much as I can. It sweetens our food in a healthy manner. Jaggery is unprocessed and unrefined form of sugar. Jaggery is useful to bind the ingredients in any recipe and have medicinal properties too. Oats have lots of fiber, which is good for you, and there is protein in the granola bars from the nuts. Dates are the best natural sweetener because they are loaded with fiber and essential minerals, rich in antioxidants. Work as an energy booster too.

Natural sweeteners

Homemade granola bars are healthier than store-bought, because you know everything that is going into them. It has no chemicals, preservatives or any added colors. 

Let’s jump to the ingredients….

Oats                                                  1 cup

Almonds                                           ½ cup

Cashew                                             ½ cup

Pumpkin seeds                                  1/4th cup

Water melon seeds                            1/4th cup

Sesame seeds                                    1/4th cup

Flax seeds                                         1tbs

Peanut (roasted and crushed)            1/4th cup

Rajgira /Ramdana/Amarnath             1/4th cup

Dates                                                 1 cup

Black raisin                                       ½ cup

Desiccated coconut                           ½ cup

Jaggery                                              1 cup

Ghee/clarified butter                         1 & ½ tbs

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180°C then line baking tray with parchment paper, set aside.

1. In a pan over medium heat dry roast all the dry ingredients one by one for 2-3 minutes.

2. Crush or pulse the cashew, peanuts and almonds for a few seconds in a processor (not to powder everything, just to crush). You can chop also in small pieces.

3. In a large bowl, combine all the nuts, seeds, coconut, flax, means all the dry ingredients including soaked raisins. Stir to combine.

4. In a pan, add ghee or clarified butter to melt the jaggery. Once the jaggery melts, add the date puree. Boil the whole mixture, keep stirring to prevent burning. Put off the heat once the mixture gets thickened. (Syrup consistency)

5. How to make the date puree? Grind the seedless soaked dates in a grinder, with little water for 3-5 minutes or until you have a smooth, uniform paste.

6. Add the paste of dates and jaggery into the dry ingredients. Mix it with the help of your hands or spatula, mix everything till well combined.

7.  Transfer the granola mixture into the prepared baking tray and spread it out evenly using the back of any glass or bowl or with a spatula.

8. Bake the granola bars for 25 - 30 minutes, or until the top is nice and golden brown.

9. Once the bars are out of the oven, let it cool completely. Cut into desired pieces. Keep these bars in refrigerator to set for at least 1-2 hours.

10. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.  

          Tips & Tricks

1. Store these bars in the fridge. You may want to wrap them in a piece of parchment paper before putting them in a container or plastic bag in the fridge so that they don’t stick together.

2. Always dry roast the ingredients for better taste and flavor.

3. It’s really important to press the granola mixture into the pan. The harder and longer you press these bars, the less possibilities to break it up after baking or while cutting.

4.    The jaggery and date mixture will really help with keeping the bars together. (It’s important for binding the bars together)

5. Finally, after baking the bars I would recommend refrigerating the granola bars for about 1 hour. This step will harden everything. Refrigeration will make the bars hard. They do soften at room temperature.

Enjoy this homemade baked version of power packed granola bars. I am sure You are going to love these bars. If you try this recipe I would love to see it. Please share this recipe with your friends and family. Let me know your opinion & request.

Here is the  video link for the recipe  https://youtu.be/k-dPWMnvKO4

Website link for more videos  https://www.addanky.com/recipes