This perfect meal prep snack is packed with nutritious trail mix favourites!

I am a big fan of making my own snack bars for a few reasons!

First, I can customize them however I like which I find super helpful for not only accommodating individual allergies or intolerances, but also preferences. It’s as simple as someone saying, ‘I don’t like (insert ingredient here)’, and I just make the swap. In fact, I recently made a batch of these bars for a family member adjusted based on their intolerances and preferences and they, thankfully, loved them! I have also tweaked the recipe in the past based on ingredients I had at home, saving me numerous trips to the grocery store. Custom-made FTW!

Next, making snack bars at home from raw ingredients is more cost effective than purchasing pre-prepared and packaged granola bars from the store since I am taking care of the processing, packaging, and delivery. This is especially beneficial with the rising food prices and yields a final product that (in my opinion) is equal to, if not better, than what we would pay more for in stores. I often get comments that time is an issue and that making these at home seems super time-consuming. I get that. But, I also think people are pleasantly surprised at how little time making these bars can take, especially if you go the batch-route and consider the actual prep versus inactive time.

And that brings me to my final reason: As a meal prepper, I like to make most snacks in batches and refrigerate or freeze them for easy grab-and-go. This now only saves me time, money, stress, and energy, but also allows me to have snacks readily available to us even when the groceries are running low and we haven’t had a chance to go to the grocery store.

Not bad, right?

So, here I present my latest snack bar creation made with some of my trail mix favourites, Trail Mix Bars!

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need for this recipe:

As I mentioned before, these snack bars are customizable and can be adjusted based on your favourite or preferred flavours! Let’s briefly talk about the the core ingredients:

Oats: I would recommend rolled or large-flake oats in these trail mix bars for the texture, but quick oats can also be used based on your preferences. Either way, oats have important nutrients like fibre, vitamins, and minerals, and have been associated with numerous health benefits including lowering cholesterol, lowering blood sugar, increasing fullness, and supporting a healthy digestive system.

Dried Fruits: I chose to include dried apricots and cranberries in the original recipe, but you can easily swap these out for other dried fruits like dates, blueberries, raisins, or figs. Dried fruits are great in snack bars as they pack in nutrients like fibre, vitamins like B vitamins, minerals like potassium and magnesium, and provide sweetness!

Nuts & Seeds: While I included sunflower seeds, pecans, and peanut butter here, feel free to mix it up with other nutritious nuts and seeds like walnuts, almonds, or pumpkin seeds. While the specific nutrient profile will differ depending on the nuts or seeds added, in general, these nutrition all-stars will provide numerous health-promoting nutrients like heart-healthy fats, fibre, protein, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals. Along with keeping us full for longer, nuts have also been associated with protection against chronic diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some forms of cancer.

Coconut: The shredded coconut provides the perfect subtle accent to these bars! I’m not a huge fan of the taste of sweetened coconut and really don’t think this recipe needs the added sweetness, so I would suggest going the unsweetened route. Coconut also provides us with some fat and fibre for fullness as well as minerals like manganese and copper.

Maple syrup: I’m not sure if it’s the Canadian in me, but maple syrup is my go-to sweetener for many recipes, including these snack bars, for its subtle and delicious flavour!

Chocolate Chips: Feel free to include your favourite chocolate here, either in chip or chopped form. While I’m typically partial to darker chocolate, the white chocolate flavour really stood out for me in these bars. I haven’t tried yogurt chips in this recipe yet, but I imagine they would also be a great alternative!

Cinnamon: Who doesn’t love cinnamon? Not only does it add the perfect flavour, it may also offer health benefits due to its suggested antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial properties!

Salt: Helps to balance out the sweetness and provides sodium and iodine (iodized salt only).

Kitchenware

You’ll also need:

• Measuring cups/spoons
• Mixing bowl
• Baking pan
• Parchment paper
• Oven
• Knife

Steps

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F and line an 8×8-inch baking pan with parchment paper.
2. In a bowl, combine all of the ingredients and mix well. The point here is to make sure all of the ingredients are distributed as evenly as possible and coated with the peanut butter, syrup, and spices.
3. Transfer the mixture to the pan and pat down well. Patting down the mixture at this stage may be tricky since the mixture may be sticky (unintentional rhyming happening here), so I’ve added an additional pat down step after baking the bars to allow for the bars to become more compact like a traditional snack bar.
4. Bake the mixture for ~10-15 minutes.
5. Remove the pan from the oven and allow it to cool for ~10 minutes. Once the pan is cool, pat the mixture down again (well) and then refrigerate for at least an hour.
6. Remove the mixture from the fridge and cut it into bars.

Tips & Notes

• The trail mix bars can be stored at room temperature for 3-4 days or longer in the fridge and even longer in the freezer
• The more you pat down the mixture, the more compact the bars will be, so feel free to adjust depending on your preferred texture
• Alternatively, the mixture can be rolled into balls to form energy bites

Recipe

References

1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-021-00875-9?CJEVENT=fe64e345c85011ed83a300460a82b824&utm_campaign=CONR_PF018_ECOM_GL_PHSS_ALWYS_DEEPLINK&utm_content=textlink&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=commission_junction&utm_term=PID100090071
2. https://www.todaysdietitian.com/enewsletter/enews_0522_01.shtml
3. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3257681/
4. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4003790/
5. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4003790/

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