Vegan Chewy S’mores Granola Bars?! Heck, yeah! (and better than the ones from the store by a long shot!)
Ingredients
- Chocolate bars
- Oats
- Rice Crisp Cereal
- Graham Crackers
- Mini Marshmallows
- Butter
- Maple Syrup
- Brown Sugar
- Ground Flax Seeds
- Salt
See recipe card for quantities.
Substitutions
- Rice cereal – instead of crisp rice cereal, you can use puffed quinoa
- Maple Syrup – you can sub maple syrup with agave nectar or golden syrup
- Graham Crackers – if you can’t find vegan graham crackers any not-too-sweet crunchy cookie will work here. As long as it can crumble in a similar way to a graham cracker, it should work!
Storage
These should be stored in the refrigerator until ready to eat. They also freeze well! Just be sure to wrap them up well before sticking in the freezer to avoid freezer burn.
Top tip
Don’t skimp on the pressing down part of the recipe! This helps to ensure your bars don’t fall apart.
S’mores Granola Bars
Ingredients
- 2 bars chocolate
- 2 cups oats
- 2 cups rice crisp cereal
- 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
- 1 ½ cups mini marshmallows
- ½ cup butter
- ⅔ cup maple syrup
- ½ cup brown sugar lightly packed
- ¼ cup ground flax seeds
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Line a 9 x 13” pan with parchment paper and set aside
- Preheat oven to 350° F
- Chop 1 ½ bars of chocolate into chunks. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, stir together oats, cereal, cracker crumbs, and 1 ¼ cups of marshmallows (reserving the rest for topping). Set aside.
- Combine butter, maple syrup, brown sugar, and salt in medium pan. Cook on low/medium heat, stirring frequently until everything is melted. Once the mixture starts to bubble, stir consistently. Let gently boil for 3 minutes while stirring. If the boil gets too aggressive, turn down heat. After 3 minutes, take off heat.
- Add in ground flax seeds and stir well to combine.
- Pour the hot liquid mixture into your dry ingredients and mix until combined.
- Add in chocolate chunks and stir to combine.
- Press mixture into your parchment lined pan. Start with the back of your spoon to spread out mixture. Then use the bottom of a jar or glass to firmly pack the mixture into the pan. Do this for 2 – 4 minutes.
- Top with more mini marshmallows if desired (this is mostly just for looks and is optional).
- Bake for 10 minutes.
- Let cool in pan for 30 minutes on cooling rack.
- Refrigerate for 2 hours before cutting. This chilling time allows them to set and helps keep them from crumbling apart when cut.
- Slice into bars.
- If you want a chocolate drizzle on top chop ½ chocolate bar and melt in microwave in 20 second increments. Stir well between each increment. Stop microwaving when there is still a bit of solid chocolate remaining. You should be able to get it to melt just by stirring well. Drizzle on top of bars as desired. I like to use a metal spoon for this.
- Store cut bars in refrigerator.
Notes
Tips:
• To make graham cracker crumbs, either put in a zip top bag and gently crush with a rolling pin or run them through a food processor until a rough crumble is created.
• When pressing your mixture into the pan, use the bottom of a glass that has been dipped in water. This helps prevent the mixture from sticking to your glass. Just keep dipping the bottom of the glass in water as needed.
• Pressing the mixture gently, but firmly into the parchment lined pan is a big part of what will keep the bars from falling apart! So don’t skimp on the 2-4 minutes of packing it down!
• The chilling process is important! The bars need to be cut when cold.
• Smaller bits of chocolate will melt when mixed with your other ingredients creating a delicious chocolate flavor throughout the bars. The larger chunks won’t melt completely and will offer nice bites of chocolate studded throughout the bar. I like having a variety in my bars so I can have the best of both worlds!