Oatmeal Peanut Butter Granola Bars

Make your snack life easier with these oatmeal peanut butter granola bars! They’re the easiest 3 ingredient granola bars that will take you only 15 minutes to make!

If your kids are like my kids, they are ALWAYS SNACKING! Especially since we’ve all been at home so much more. We eat breakfast, then about an hour later it’s already time for a snack. There’s the post-breakfast snack, the pre-lunch snack, the afternoon snack and sometimes the pre-dinner snack. So much snacking.

I’m not opposed to giving the kids pre-packaged snacks when we’re out and about, but I do try to throw in quite a few homemade eats as well. Our usual go-to’s are muffins or granola bars.

Since we’re doing ALL of the snacking, I feel like I’m always on the lookout for new granola bar recipes to try, or energy balls. I often skip past recipes that require a million steps, because, come on. ‘Aint nobody got time for that! I’m often also looking for nut-free granola bars, because up until recently, the kids were taking these snacks to school and everything has to be allergy-friendly for school. So anything with nut butter as a binder was out!

One good thing to come from school being out is my freedom to bake and no-bake with nut butters! I truly love the combo of PB & honey for a granola bar binder or just slathered on a piece of toast. This recipe is essentially the same flavor as a PB & honey sandwich! And I’m you see this coming – but it’s ONLY 3 INGREDIENTS!

What are the ingredients in oatmeal peanut butter granola bars?

The 3 ingredients in these bars is:

• rolled oats
• peanut butter
• honey

You can substitute the honey for maple syrup if you want to make this recipe vegan, but they will not hold together quite as well as with the honey. Trust me, I’ve tried both versions! I prefer the honey.

The chocolate drizzle on top is optional, but it makes them look a little less “blah” and you can never go wrong with a little bit of chocolate right!?

How do you make these 3 ingredient granola bars?

These bars are technically no-bake, but I do like to take the extra step of toasting my oats before throwing them into the recipe. I find this simple step adds a lot more flavor to the bars. So, while you’re toasting the oats (about 10 minutes), melt the peanut butter with the honey until smooth. You can do this in the microwave, but I like to do it on the stovetop.

Once the oats are toasted and the PB & honey is smooth, toss it all together and press the mixture into a parchment or aluminum-foil lined 8 x 8 baking dish. Press everything down FIRMLY using another piece of parchment or the back of a spoon. 

If you’re adding the chocolate drizzle, you can do that now, but otherwise, put the pan into the fridge to chill for 3-4 hours before cutting into bars. I cut mine into 16 bars but you can make these smaller or bigger, as well.

Pro tip: if you’re in a rush, putting these bars in the freezer an hour will do the trick too!

How long do these oatmeal peanut butter granola bars last?

If you’re keeping these in the fridge, which I highly recommend, these will last up to 2 weeks. Much, much longer if you keep them in the freezer! They’re even tasty straight from the freezer. 

They do get a little soft if you’re keeping them at room temperature, so they’re fine for the day if you pack them in a work lunch or backpack, but for anything longer than a day I definitely recommend the fridge!

You can also play around with this recipe a lot! Add mini chocolate chips, dried cranberries, flax seed or pumpkin seeds, or anything else you can think of!

Enjoy!

Some other granola bar recipes you might love:

• coconut cream larabars
• M&M granola bars
• no-bake nut-free granola bars

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