Quick Grain-Free Granola Bars (Blender Recipe) (2024)

FAQs

How do you bind granola bars together? ›

Honey or maple syrup

These natural sweeteners also help bind the bars together, and make these bars deliciously sweet (though not too sweet).

While there are several different sticky ingredients that you can use, we've found that the binding agent that works the best is honey! When added to your homemade granola bars, honey acts as glue that sticks all the pieces together.

While the oats and nuts bake, you can make the sticky glue that holds our bars together. You'll melt butter, honey, and brown sugar in a saucepan and simmer until the sugar dissolves. Mix this sticky mixture with the toasted oats and nuts. Allow everything to cool, and then toss in dried fruit and chocolate chips.

They save well (wrap and freeze them for up to two months), are more affordable than store-bought bars, and don't contain the long list of unpronounceable ingredients. Plus, your kitchen will smell like a bakery while these granola bars bake. Ahhhh.

Nut butter is a super flavorful fat that serves multiple purposes in granola. It acts as a binding agent—along with additional coconut oil and whatever natural sweetener I've chosen—helping to pull the dry ingredients together into a wet, sticky mass for baking.

You need to stir the granola as it bakes to encourage even toasting. But, about halfway through the total bake time, just let it be. As the sugars caramelize, they cause the ingredients to stick together and eventually form those oh-so-desirable clusters. Stirring breaks up the clusters, so leave it alone.

Binders are any ingredient that can help a mixture hold its shape or remain bound together. Traditional binding agents include flour and eggs. The most commonly used food binder is flour. Flour is created by grinding raw grains or roots into a powder and then served in diverse cuisines.

Make sure that whichever granola recipe you use, it calls for some liquid, typically oil of some kind (I recommend olive oil for a subtle earthy, floral flavor, or melted unrefined coconut oil for subtly coconutty flavor). The liquid will help the chia seeds to gel, ensuring the granola sticks together.

Just like chia seeds, flaxseeds can form a gel and act as a binder. 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed meal mixed with 3 tablespoons of water or the wet ingredients replaces 1 egg. As flaxseed meal is the powdered form, you can also just add the flaxseed meal to the dry ingredients.

If your granola bars are falling apart or seem too crumbly, here are a few tips. Make sure you use honey or another sticky sweetener such as maple syrup in the liquid part of the recipe; this recipe calls for honey. This will help bind together the ingredients and keep that signature bar shape.

Why is my homemade granola not crunchy? ›

I aim to let it hit room temperature, whatever that may be; the real point is to give it ample time to shed excess heat and steam. This should take about 45 minutes; if left out indefinitely, the granola can turn sticky or soft, so do try to put it away as soon after cooling as you can.

For added softness, Nature Valley's hack is a quick pop in the microwave for a warm and chewier snack. Alternatively, yogurt lovers can break up the bars while they're still wrapped and pour it into their yogurt for extra crunch.

Honey – Along with the nut butter, it helps all these ingredients stick together! I love its warm amber flavor in this recipe.

The Quaker Oats Company issued a recall in late 2023 and has added more products to its recall list in 2024 due to a risk of contamination with salmonella. There are more than 100 recalled products that the Quaker Oats Company is encouraging consumers to avoid.

But really, add a beaten egg white -- make sure it's foamy and frothy -- to your granola after you've mixed it all together. The protein in the egg will help bind the oats together, creating addictive morsels. (Shhh: it's the secret to Deb Perelman's Big Cluster Maple Granola.)

Cut into desired size and put each into a bag. Roll up the bag and tape! Store in fridge. My review: Ours tasted great but were a bit crumbly, which is why I'd follow another recipe like the one I linked above.

Fortunately, there are ways to eat Nature Valley granola bars that prevent a little less of a crumble catastrophe. General Mills told Bloomer that eaters could try warming the bars up in the microwave to soften them first (but take them out of the package first).