Easy Granola Balls
Making a Granola Bar Replacement at Home
Making the Switch from Store Bought Granola Bars
Our children LOVE granola bars. They could eat them every single day. In fact, they used to eat them every single day. We would buy granola bars constantly. They were just so…easy. Easy to take out and about, easy snack in the morning, etc… But when we tightened our spending, we realized granola bars just had to go. But, what would we have in its place? With 4 kids that are 5 and under, I didn’t have a lot of time to spend making complicated snacks. So we started making granola balls, letting the kids help make it, and now we have them all the time.
What Goes in Granola Balls?
We are pretty simple at our house. I like to use ingredients we just happen to already have in our pantry. Most of our pantry staples we get at Costco. For these granola balls, we use the Costco organic peanut butter, organic honey, vanilla, cinnamon, chocolate chips, and of course, oats. We love the One Degree organic sprouted oats also from Costco. Big Man, who is 5.5 years old can ALMOST make these himself, but getting peanut butter out of the jar is still difficult for him. All the kids love making these, and they hunt down all of the ingredients, and measuring cups, bowls and spoons. We usually make 2 cups of oats at a time as our base. Then we add 1/4 cup honey, 1 cup peanut butter, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. I personally like to use the mini chocolate chips because it feels like “more”. I vary how much chocolate chips I put in, depending on the kids behavior, or the day, or a variety of factors, but never more than 1/2 cup. You could also switch it our for raisins or craisins.
Making and Eating
2 cups of oats usually ends up being about 20-24 balls, depending how large you make them. I like to make them into balls and immediately put them into a container for the fridge. They are best if put in the fridge for at least an hour to harden up the peanut butter and make them less sticky. I usually put it in some sort of to go container and then they are ready to go if we are having a picnic or a playdate. However, there have been times that we have made these and the kids are so excited to eat them that they don’t mind sticky fingers, or we just skip making them into balls and they eat it with a spoon out of a bowl.
I hope you enjoy making and eating these as much as we do!
Easy Granola Balls
Equipment
- 1 Bowl
Ingredients
- 2 cups oats
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips or less, depending on your family
- 1/2 tsp cinammon
- 1 tsp vanilla
Instructions
- Combine oats, peanut butter, honey, cinnamon, vanilla, and chocolate chips (as desired) into a bowl and combine. There should be enough peanut butter to work as a glue to hold everything together. If it appears to "sticky" add more oats. If it is too dry, add more peanut butter.
- Shape into 1 inch thick balls and place into a container to go into fridge. Roughly makes 20-24 balls, depending on the size of the granola balls.
- Leave in fridge for one hour or more to harden peanut butter so it will be less sticky.
- Then eat and enjoy! Any leftovers can be stored in the fridge for another day.
