No Bake Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Granola Bars (Gluten Free)

I know there are some great health benefits to having raw honey in your diet each day.  A friend recently told me to just add some honey to some warm water in the mornings.  I did that.  And had to really choke it down, then ended up adding a little lemon juice and ice just to finish it.  So I decided to come up with my own way of getting some honey in everyday.  I put together these easy no bake granola bars and they have been my dose of daily honey for the last week or so.  Happy me!

These are perfectly sweet and just a little bar does me in for that little bit of sweetness I sometimes think I need.  No guilt since they are gluten free.  If you don’t want the chocolate chips, leave them out, they’d still be a great peanut butter and honey granola bar.  Because there isn’t a bunch of other sugars, you can really taste the honey, which I like.

No Bake Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Granola Bars, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

2 cups gluten free old fashioned oats

1 cup gluten free crisp rice cereal (I used Nature’s Path Organic Chocolate Koala Crisp, mmm)

2/3 cup raw honey

1/3 cup natural peanut butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup roasted, salted peanuts

1/2 cup Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips

Line a 9 inch square pan with nonstick foil.  Cover lightly with coconut oil.  Put the oats and cereal in a bowl and stir to combine.  In a microwave safe bowl or a small saucepan, put the honey and peanut butter in and heat just until barely heated enough to whisk together.  It only took 30 seconds in the microwave.  (If it gets too hot, let it cool slightly, you don’t want it to melt the chocolate chips—although that wouldn’t be the end of the world.)  Stir the vanilla into the honey peanut butter mixture.  Pour over the oats and cereal mixture and stir until all of dry mixture is moistened.  Stir in the peanuts and chocolate chips and fold together until they are well mixed.  Spread the granola bar mixture into the prepared pan and press down evenly.  Refrigerate the bars for about an hour.  Remove from the pan using the foil edges.  Peel the foil off the bars and cut into rectangles (I cut them into 12.)  Keep stored in an airtight container in the fridge (they stay perfectly firm and chewy).

This potato masher is the perfect way to press down on things like these granola bars, or my other favorite—Rice Krispies Treats.  I just coat it with a little cooking spray or in this case, coconut oil (I don’t use cooking spray on things I eat), then tamp down all over the bars until they are even.  I find that it reaches in the corners better than a glass would or something like that.  And whenever I use my hand, I don’t like the sticky.  Try it sometime.

 Have you had any raw honey lately?  Don’t buy the commercial stuff, even though the label doesn’t say, many are filled with more than just honey.  Get ones that saw raw and unfiltered on them.