3 Ingredient Healthy Energy Bars – these delicious energy bars are simple to make, require no cooking and no fuss. Just pulse, refrigerate and enjoy.
You know I love recipes that require 5 ingredients or less, so I’m super happy to share a simple and healthy recipe for energy bars, and all it takes are 3 simple ingredients.
While some of my favorite ingredients are bacon, Nutella, and butter, and although I always say bacon makes everything better, sometimes we just have to try something else. But I am a huge fan of these kind of fruit bars and the beauty of this recipe is that you can really substitute any dried fruit or nut that you want. Some great substitutions would be pecans instead of peanuts, or macadamia nuts, raisins instead of apricots, or cranberries, or whatever dried fruit you fancy. In the end you will end up with these amazing bars that are the perfect snack.
Ingredients
- Peanuts – Preferably unsalted. Feel free to use other nuts such as almonds, pecans, etc.
- Dates – Dried dates that is. They’re so good for us, full of antioxidants, can reduce blood pressure, food for blood sugar balance and they contain a brain booster. Why wouldn’t we eat these?
- Apricots – We need dried apricots. These are also good for us, they help build up our immune system!
How To Make Energy Bars
- Place the nuts, dates and apricots in a food processor. Pulse a few times just to break them up. Separate the dates if they start to clump together.
- Scrape the edges of the bowl as needed and continue processing for another 1-2 minutes, until the ingredients clump together and gather into a ball.
- Lay a piece of parchment paper on your work surface about the size of a baking sheet. Press the dough with your hands until it forms a thick square, roughly 8″ x 8″ in size. I found it easy to roll it with a rolling pin to get it nice and smooth. Wrap it with plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour or overnight.
- Unwrap the chilled power bar dough and transfer to a cutting board. Cut into 8 large bars or 16 small squares, as desired. Wrap each bar in plastic wrap or wax paper.
Other Healthy Snacks To Try:
- Berry Yogurt Bark
- Vegetarian Stuffed Mushrooms
- Baba Ganoush
- Pumpkin Zucchini Muffins
- Cheesy Cauliflower Tots
- Eggplant Dip
- Acai Bowl
- Cucumber Sandwich Bites
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3 Ingredient Healthy Energy Bars
Instructions
- Place the nuts, dates and apricots in a food processor. Pulse a few times just to break them up. Separate the dates if they start to clump together.
- Scrape the edges of the bowl as needed and continue processing for another 1-2 minutes, until the ingredients clump together and gather into a ball.
- Lay a piece of parchment paper on your work surface about the size of a baking sheet. Press the dough with your hands until it forms a thick square, roughly 8″ x 8″ in size. I found it easy to roll it with a rolling pin to get it nice and smooth. Wrap it with plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour or overnight.
- Unwrap the chilled power bar dough and transfer to a cutting board. Cut into 8 large bars or 16 small squares, as desired. Wrap each bar in plastic wrap or wax paper.
Recipe Notes
- Bars can be stored in fridge for several weeks or freezer for up to 3 months.
- Please keep in mind that nutritional information is a rough estimate and can vary greatly based on products used.
What would be an acceptable substitution for the apricots?
You can use whatever you’d like! Dates, peaches, etc. Anything you want will work!
I am wondering if 98Kcal = 98,000 Calories. Is this correct? For one piece? Sounds deliious!
Yes! You’re correct 🙂
Jo, nuts – salted or unsalted?
Unsalted!
98 calories for the large bars 1 of 8 or small 1 of 16. Thank you.
For the smaller bars.
You mention bacon how would you use this in the recipe?
Ha! I’d crumble it up and add it to the food processor to mix everything together.
do the peanuts need to be raw or roasted?
Mine weren’t roasted, just raw dry peanuts.
QuIck, easy, and delicious (I substituted the peanuts with pecans)
Wow only three ingredients and healthy too?! These bars are definitely something I need to make!
How simple and they look amazingly good.