Rustic Homemade Protein Bars (14g Protein Each!)
I am in the thick of pregnancy right now, so I am tracking my protein like crazy! If you’re like me and you want a whole-foods alternative to store bought protein bars (which often have low-quality protein sources and bad ingredients) then try these homemade protein bars! They have 14 grams of protein in just one bar!
What You’ll Need:
Protein Powder – choose a high quality protein powder here! I love Transparent Labs Grass Fed Whey Protein. I use the unflavored kind because I don’t like tasting protein powder in my recipes.
Oats – we’ll grind some into oat flour, and leave some whole! Toasting the oats also adds such a great flavor to the bars.
Dates – some natural sweetener here, plus great vitamins in the dates! Also, I had to add these in since they’re great for pregnancy lol.
Maple Syrup & Honey – I like to use a little of each. You can certainly just use one if you would prefer.
Nut Butter – I use Kirkland Peanut Butter which just has two ingredients: peanuts and salt.
Avocado oil, water, and salt – these last few ingredients will bring the bars together perfectly!
How to Make Protein Bars From Scratch
It is actually SO simple to do!
Step 1: Prep
First, grind and toast your oats. Then, chop your dates. This is the only prep things to do before combining everything!
Step 2: Mix
Combine ALL the ingredients except the water. I like to use a hand mixer here to make the process super easy – but you could do it by hand if you want to work your muscles LOL.
Now check the consistency. We want it to be slightly crumbly but not so crumbly that it won’t form into the bars. You’ll likely need to add somewhere between 1-3 tbsp of water to get there. I did 2 tbsp. This is what my dough looked like when I was done:
Step 3: Form!
Now, here is where I like to get super precise. Since I’m tracking my protein, I don’t like to put the dough into one pan and cut it into bars later. I’m just not great at getting the bars all the same size.
So instead, I weigh the dough, divide it by 8, and use that amount (2.35 oz) to determine the size of my bars!
I called these rustic protein bars because I form them by hand. Just take your portion of dough and form it into a rough mass first.
Then, slowly pat and mold the bar until you get a shape you like. They will likely turn out to be slightly oval.
Rustic Homemade Protein Bars (14g Protein Each!)
Ingredients
- 66 grams unflavored protein powder I use Transparent Labs 100% grass fed whey protein
- 10 tbsp natural peanut butter (160 grams)
- 1 1/4 cups rolled oats ground into oat flour
- 1/4 cup rolled oats leave whole
- 5 Dates
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tbsp honey
- 2 tsp avocado oil
- 2 tbsp water to help it come together
- Pinch salt
- Flaky salt optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Grind 1 1/4 cups whole oats into oat flour using a wheat grinder, blender, or food processor.
- Spread the oat flour and whole oats onto the baking sheet evenly. Bake until lightly toasted. (You will be able to smell it!)
- While the oats are toasting, cut the 5 dates into small pieces (the smaller the better, or adjust based on your preference).
- In a large bowl, combine the toasted oats, cut up dates, and all the rest of the ingredients except the water and flaky salt.
- Using a hand mixer, begin mixing all the ingredients together on low speed. Gradually increase speed until everything is incorporated.
- The mixture should be a little bit crumbly, but not too much (see photo). If it is too crumbly, add the water 1 tbsp at a time to desired consistency. You will probably need at LEAST 1 tbsp, but I needed 2.
- Cover a small baking dish or plate with more parchment paper.
- Form the mass of ingredients into a rough ball and weigh it. It should weigh about 19 oz total.
- Divide the dough into 2.35 oz portions for each bar (or your total ingredient weight divided by 8).
- Take each portion and form it into a rough clump first. Then, mold it and pat it until it forms a bar. It doesn't have to be perfect!
- Put your finished bars on the prepared dish. Top with more honey and flakey sea salt, then let bars set in the fridge for at least an hour before enjoying.
Notes
- Feel free to sub peanut butter for your favorite nut butter.
- To achieve the 14g of protein per bar, your protein powder of choice should have 28g of protein in a 33g serving (in 1 scoop). My protein powder of choice is Transparent Labs 100% Grass Fed Whey Protein.
- Feel free to adjust the sweetener amount or sub some maple syrup for honey, etc. Just keep in mind if you use less or more you may need to adjust the amount of water you put in as well.
