Recipe: Oats & Honey Bars with Cranberries

Quick no bake granola bars that are perfect for getting your kids to help in the kitchen, featuring oatmeal, organic honey, cranberries, and a sprinkling of sea salt.

I love honey. In a million different ways. In fact, I love it so much that when the folks at Madhava Organic Honey asked me to develop a recipe for their product, I had a tough time whittling it down to just one.

My kids on the other hand? Do not love honey.

And so my end goal quickly became not only to make a new recipe with the organic honey, but to make a recipe with the honey that my kids would like, which is how I ended up choosing to go with these Oats & Honey Bars.

A slight riff on a granola bar, something my kids do love, these bars make a great grab-and-go breakfast or snack for when you have negative time, but still want your kids to eat something relatively healthy. Anything to avoid a more disastrous choice like the drive-thru.

Aside from the first step, this is the perfect recipe to let your kids help make, and I’ve found that my kids are more inclined to try something new if they’ve had a hand in making it. Their curiosity just gets the better of them.

Heat up a few ingredients. Add it to your dry ingredients. Spread in a baking dish, and let chill in the fridge.

I wanted the recipe to be sweet, but not overly sweet, and the honey makes a perfect binder. One hundred percent pure and raw honey, the only ingredient in the Madhava Organic Honey is … honey. Which is pretty much exactly the way it should be. The brand has been around since the early 70s and it can be easily found in your grocery story, and purchased online as well. Ten cents of every jar sold goes to help the bees (find out more about this specific project at SweetEartProject.org).

Oh! And one more thing about these delicious Oats & Honey Bars … the recipe is perfect for personalizing to your very own taste buds. I added cranberries to use its gentle tartness to offset the sweetness of honey, but feel free to swap them out for something different … chocolate chips, yogurt chips, or pepitas are a fun examples of some awesome and easy substitutions you can add instead.

Enjoy.

Oats & Honey Bars with Cranberries
Recipe courtesy of Cate O’Malley

Ingredients
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup Madhava honey
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 cups quick cooking oats
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup dried cranberries
sea salt

Directions
In a small pot, melt butter, honey, and brown sugar together over medium heat. Once it starts to bubble, reduce the heat and cook for two minutes. Remove from heat.

In a bowl, add the oats and pour the honey mixture over it. Add the peanut butter and stir to combine. Fold in the cranberries. Pour into a 9×13 baking dish and spread out and press down lightly. Sprinkle with sea salt. Put in refrigerator for two hours until completely set (and keep refrigerated until they’re all gone).

*I was compensated for creating this recipe. Thank you for supporting the brands that support my family. All opinions are completely my own.

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