Protein bars that are both tasty and healthy are not easy to find. Most commercial products that I have tried I don’t like, there is just something off-putting in them (notable exception: Packaroons by Heather’s Choice; the orange-vanilla flavoured ones are the best: www.heatherschoice.com/products/orange-vanilla-packaroons).
So we started making our own. They are fairly simple to produce, and tasty (we think). I vacuum-wrap them in packages of four, giving me roughly 500 cals and over 30 grams of protein as a trail snack. Here is the recipe, if you, like me, are tired of Cliff bars. In italics are the quantities I used per batch in the latest production round. I don’t like making bigger batches because it’s becomes more difficult to get everything mixed well.
Ingredients*:
– 0.5 cups dried dates/prunes/cherries (105 gram prunes/30 grams cherries)
– 1 cup almonds (150 grams)
– 0.5 cups unsweetened shredded coconut (45 grams)
– 1.5 cup protein powder (we use chocolate flavour – 120 grams)
– 1 tablespoon coconut oil (liquid)
– 1 tablespoon chia seeds
– 1 teaspoon cacao powder
– shredded coconut to coat balls
– milk/water as needed (not much)
Extremely complicated directions:
1. Using a kitchen machine, finely chop the almonds. You really need a machine, as you are trying to get it powdery almost (some chunks will resist the spinning blades, which is fine).
2. Add all other ingredients, except for milk/water
3. Chop/mix everything in the machine until there are no more large pieces of anything (doesn’t take too long).
4. With the machine running, add some milk or water, slowly. Doesn’t need much. The contents will start to stick together. Keep adding (a little bit) of milk or water until suddenly everything is sticking together in big blobs of mixture and likely your knife is spinning freely without agitating the mass inside your appliance.
5. Take the sticky mess out, form balls, coat them with shredded coconut.
6. They are ready to eat, but you can also put them in the dehydrator for a few hours to make them less sticky and reduce weight somewhat. I like them better that way.
7. Vacuum wrap, or chuck them in a ziplock bag and freeze (not sure if that is necessary, whenever I do a small batch they don’t last long)
Approximate nutritional value:
Per protein ball of approx. 28 grams (1 oz):
130 calories
7.6 grams of fat
8.8 grams of carbs
8.0 grams of protein
*I hope I didn’t steal this recipe off someone’s website. I’d like to think it was a compilation of a few ideas we picked up here and there, but if I actually did copy it verbatim from somewhere, I apologize. Maybe you can feel flattered that your recipe was good enough to share with a bigger crowd.