What do you think are the ingredients that make homemade granola bars extra special? Once you try this granola bars with honey recipe full of figs and just enough heat from ginger you may just want to add them to your weekly meal prep list for healthy snacks all week.
Homemade Granola Bars How-to
These homemade granola bars take a page from how to make granola. Toasting the oats until golden, about 20 to 25 minutes brings out their nutty notes making the flavor of the key ingredient in granola bars deeper. While the oats toast, you make a honey syrup that will be used as the sweetener for this granola bars with honey recipe.
The honey is another critical ingredient as the stickiness will help bind the bars. Orchard Choice and Sun-Maid California Dried Figs add extra sweetness along with crystallized ginger that also contributes a bit of sweet heat. You’re looking to use rolled oats in this recipe, not quick-cooking oats also sometimes called instant oats, as those oats are smaller and their texture becomes sandy when toasted.
Healthy Snacking for Where You’re Headed Next
Dried figs bring nutrition to the bar too—fiber, potassium, calcium, iron, and micro-nutrients. Figs on their own are a great healthy snack with an abundance of nutrients and no fat, cholesterol, or sodium. The fiber in figs and oats means they will help you stay fuller longer and help with digestion.
Is there anywhere homemade granola bars can’t go? This is one of our favorite things about this granola bars with honey recipe. One batch yields 36 bars and when wrapped and stored tightly in plastic wrap, the granola bars will keep for up to 2 weeks at room temperature.
Granola Bars with California Dried Figs and Ginger
Ingredients
- 7 cups old fashioned rolled oats
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 tsp table salt
- 3/4 cup honey
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar packed
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon optional
- 1 1/2 cups whole almonds or pecans, peanuts, walnuts, chopped coarse
- 1 cup Orchard Choice or Sun-Maid California Figs stems removed
- 1/4 cup crystalized ginger chopped
Instructions
- Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Toss oats, oil, and salt together in large bowl; spread out over 12 by 18-inch baking sheet and bake, stirring often, until pale gold, 20 to 25 minutes.
- While oats are toasting, heat honey and brown sugar in small saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently, until sugar is fully dissolved, about 5 minutes. Stir in vanilla and cinnamon (if using) and set aside.
- Remove oats from oven and lower oven temperature to 300 degrees. Transfer toasted oats to large bowl and toss with honey mixture until evenly coated. Stir in nuts, dried figs, and crystallized ginger.
- Line 12 by 18-inch baking sheet with aluminum foil, then coat lightly with vegetable oil spray. Spread oat mixture out on prepared pan, then pack tightly into even layer using wet metal spatula. Bake until golden, 35 to 40 minutes.
- Let cool on wire rack for 15 minutes, then cut into 2 by 3-inch bars in pan. Let cool completely before removing from pan.
