Healthy snacks made easy! Here is a recipe for easy tasty trail mix bars. They contain no refined sugar and no baking is required. You simply mix together the ingredients, press into a baking tin and refrigerate for 2hrs+ before slicing up into bars.

These bars are crammed with oats, nuts or seeds, dried fruit, crispies of choice, nut or seed butter combined together with maple syrup or honey (for non-vegans), chocolate and a little coconut oil. I love to add protein powder too, boosting the nutritional profile and making these perfect as pre-work-out and post-workout snacks.

These gorgeous bars are chewy from the oats and dried fruit and crunchy from the nuts, seeds and crispies. The dark chocolate melts to add deep cacao tones to the bars adding to their yumminess!

By using gluten-free oats, these bars are suitable for coeliacs, by using seed butter and seeds, these are nut-free and by using maple syrup and coconut oil, these bars are suitable for vegans.

These bars make great portable snacks (sometimes I have these for breakfast on the go!), but if kept out of the fridge, they tend to be a bit more gooey.

Makes: 14-18 bars

Preparation time: 20-25 mins. Refrigerate for 2hrs+

Ingredients:

• 150g maple syrup or honey (if non-vegan)
• 3 tbsp. nut or seed butter (this recipe works well with cashew, almond, peanut and sunflower seed butter)
• 2 tbsp. coconut oil
• 80g jumbo oats
• 40g crispies of choice: I use 20g quinoa crispies and 20g puffed brown rice crispies
• 100g dried fruit of choice. I use 40 g dried goldenberries, 30g dried cranberries, 30g dried apricot
• 100g nuts or seeds of choice. (I use 50g pumpkin seeds, 30g sunflower seeds and 20g chia seeds)
• 20g dried goji berries
• 4 tbsp. protein powder (pea, soya bean)
• 30g dark chocolate (chips or a broken up bar; the chocolate will melt into the mixture)
• ¼ tsp. sea salt

Optional: ½ tsp. ground cinnamon

Variations:

Use 100g dried mango, goldenberries, pineapple as the dried fruit and 20g desiccated coconut instead of the goji berries for a tropical flavoured bar.

Method:

1. Line a square baking tin with greaseproof paper, allowing some overhang to allow the bars to be lifted out easily later and grease with a little coconut oil.
2. Toast nuts or seeds if you would like a more aromatic bar. To do this, scatter onto a dry baking sheet and pop in an oven at 150ºC for 5 mins.
3. In a medium sized saucepan, melt together the maple syrup or honey along with the nut or seed butter of choice and coconut oil  and stir to form a silky smooth liquid. Set aside.
4. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, crispies, dried fruit, nuts and/or seeds, goji berries, protein powder, dark chocolate and salt.
5. Add the coconut oil mixture and stir to combine evenly.
6. Pour into the prepared baking tin, level and press down firmly with a spatula. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours to overnight to set. Then using the greaseproof paper overhangs, lift out onto a chopping board and slice up into bars. These last for about 10-14 days in the refrigerator. Enjoy!

Don’t forget you can find my favourite recipes in my FREE eBook here.