Chewy No-Bake Chocolate Cherry Oat Squares

Chewy No-Bake Chocolate Cherry Oat Squares

These bars are soft and chewy and super adaptable. If you’ve got nut allergies in your house, use sunflower seed butter here and swap in seeds for the nuts. Allergies or not, keep the proportions the same and use any nuts, seeds or dried fruit you like! I love the chocolate chunks, but you could certainly omit them to make these a bit more virtuous.

Ingredients

1 cup (100g) rolled oats
3/4 cup (75g) sliced almonds
1 cup (18g) puffed grain cereal (like kamut or rice)
½ cup (75g) dried tart cherries (or cranberries or raisins)
½ cup (70g) raw or toasted pepitas
1/2 cup (75g) chocolate chips
1/2 cup (120ml) almond butter
1/3 cup (80ml) honey
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
pinch ground cinnamon

Instructions

Line an 8×8 inch baking dish with parchment paper.

Toss oats, almonds, puffed cereal, cherries, and pepitas together in a bowl (hold off on the chocolate chips for now).

In a small saucepan over low heat, warm the almond butter and honey until combined. Remove from the heat and whisk in the vanilla extract, salt and cinnamon.

Drizzle mixture over the dry ingredient and stir with a rubber spatula until everything is even coated (you can even get your bare hands in there at this point – it’s messy but quicker).

If mixture is relatively cool to the touch, fold in chocolate chips. Scrape mixture into the prepared pan and, using the back of a spatula, press evenly into a nice compact layer.

Refrigerate for at least one hour before slicing. Slice into 20 small squares (or larger squares or bars). Store in the refrigerator, covered, for up to 1 week.