Homemade Chocolate Chip Granola Bars

It has taken many attempts to get this recipe just right. I finally nailed the process & created an easy kid approved granola bar. For all of you following the 21 day fix, this is approved, it is also clean & I will show you different options when making these as well. I have also finally perfected the chocolate bottom coating, which let me tell you I was celebrating when I discovered what works! So here we go!

Ingredients (makes 30 bars): Old Fashioned Rolled Oats (4 cups) Natural peanut butter (2 cups) Pure Honey (1/2 cup) or you can use pure maple syrup (1/2 cup) or do 1/4 cup of honey & maple syrup Raw Almonds (1/2 cup) Flax Seeds (1/2 cup) You can add different raw nuts or seeds. Also mini chocolate chips to the mixture.

I put the almonds in my Vitamin to crush them. Easier to add to the mixture, but you can halve them as well.

Add oats, flax seeds & almonds to a dish. Mix together.

Next add the peanut butter and honey in a pyrex cup and melt them together in the microwave for 25 seconds. Remove from the microwave and still well. Now pour that mixture into the dish and mix very well. Make sure you scrape the bottom of the bowl so everything in the dish gets some honey and peanut butter on it.

You may add mini chocolate chips to the mixture. I added a 1/2 a cup of the enjoy life mini chips. Then stirred the mixture well once again.

I lined a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Now I added 1 cup of chocolate chips with one tablespoon of coconut oil. I microwaved the mixture in 3, 25 second increments. Stirring well each time the 25 seconds were up.

Next thing I did was drizzle all the melted chocolate mixture onto the parchment paper. Then I used a spatula to cover the pan evenly.

I then started scooping the granola mixture onto the melted chocolate immediately.

After all the granola was placed over the chocolate mixture I took a clean glass cup and used it to firmly press down the granola mixture.

After I did this, I placed the pan of granola into my freezer for 45 minutes.

I removed them from the freezer. Picked up the parchment paper & started to cut them into granola bars.

These baggies are the perfect size to store them in. You can keep them fresh in your fridge and freeze the extra ones. I have learned what I keep in the fridge will be eaten right away. So I try to limit them and the rest go in the freezer.

If you are following the 21 day fix you would count one serving as a yellow container. I hope you all enjoy these as much as we have!