Strawberry Granola Bars with Coconut Flakes

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by | Updated: May 18th, 2017

If a busy morning routine keeps you from sitting down to enjoy a whole breakfast, you might think about grabbing a granola bar from a box in the pantry. Can those bars really be healthy? Unfortunately, many mainstream snack and breakfast bars are packed with preservatives and artificial sweeteners. Hardly a worthy breakfast choice. When hard-to-pronounce ingredients fill the nutrition facts, make your own breakfast bar full of real, healthy food. With wholesome oats, bits of freeze-dried strawberries and flakes of dried coconut, these vegan and gluten-free Strawberry Granola Bars with Coconut Flakes are the perfect on-the-go breakfast or midday snack.

Homemade Coconut-Strawberry Granola Bars | Vitacost.com/Blog

Ingredients

1 ½ cups quick-cooking oats
2/3 cup mashed banana (about 1 ½ bananas)
½ cups unsweetened shredded coconut
½ cup freeze-dried strawberries, chopped
2 Tbsp. coconut palm sugar
1 Tbsp. chia seeds
½ cup unsweetened applesauce
¼ tsp. coconut extract
¼ tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a baking pan (8” x 8”).
  2. Mix together banana, apple sauce, coconut extract and vanilla extract. Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and mix until combined.
  3. Pour mixture into baking pan. Flatten with a spoon or spatula.
  4. Bake for 12-13 minutes. Once completely cooled, cut into 10 bars.
  5. Store refrigerated in an airtight container.