Homemade Protein Bars - Perfect for hiking this summer!

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup vegan protein powder (mine was vanilla-flavored)
• 1/2 cup cashews
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup + 2 Tbs unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries

Instructions

1. In a food processor, pulse oats into a fine flour. Place in a large mixing bowl. Next, add cashews to the food processor and pulse into small pieces. Add to oats then mix in salt and protein powder.
2. Stir in maple syrup and natural peanut butter. Add in 1/4 cup of almond milk. The goal is for the mixture to have a sticky cookie dough batter consistency, so keep adding almond milk 1 Tbs at a time until it reaches the desired consistency (for me this was 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons of milk).
3. Finally, stir in dried cranberries.
4. Line an 8x8 baking pan with foil or parchment paper. Press and evenly distribute batter into pan.
5. Place pan in the freezer for 15 minutes. Remove from freezer and slice into either 12 snack-sized bars or 6 meal-sized bars.
6. Store bars in the freezer. The longer they are out of the freezer the softer their consistency will get.

Notes

Nutrition (1/12 of recipe): 167 calories, 7 g fat, 20 g carbohydrate, 3 g fiber, 7 g sugar, 8 g protein Nutrition (1/6 of recipe): 335 calories, 14 g fat, 39 g carbohydrate, 5 g fiber, 13 g sugar, 16 g protein

By The Healthy Toast

bon appetit