Chocolate-Avocado Breakfast Bars
October 23, 2018
How about adding a whole bunch of nutrients to delicious, unprocessed chocolate to get you going in the morning?
These breakfast bars are sweet, crunchy, and incredibly satisfying. You might even feel like you’re having a treat — oh wait, you are! Chocolate-Avocado Breakfast Bars taste like a treat and they’re packed with unprocessed goodness. So when you enjoy this recipe, you’re actually treating your body as well as you’re treating your palate. Scrumptious and healthy — all in one. Perfect.
Chocolate-Avocado Breakfast Bars
Ingredients
- 2 cups oats
- ½ cup almond meal
- ½ cup shredded unsweetened coconut
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ cup coconut oil, melted, plus 2 teaspoons
- 3 tablespoons amaranth, "popped" (see note)
- ½ pound dark chocolate, finely chopped
- ½ ripe avocado, medium-large
- 3 tablespoons honey
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F, and line an 8x8-inch) baking pan with parchment paper. Set aside. (Use a large piece that will cover the sides and cut slits in each corner so that it will lay flat.)
- Add the oats, almond meal, shredded coconut and salt into a large mixing bowl. Drizzle with the coconut oil, mix until everything is evenly coated, and then pour the mixture onto a baking sheet and roast in the preheated 375°F oven until it's golden brown, about 20 minutes. (Do not wash the bowl you mixed in -- set it aside for later.)
- While the oat mixture is roasting, melt the chocolate in the top of a double boiler and mash the avocado with a fork until it's as smooth as possible -- you will need ½ cup. (Here’s a photographic guide to peeling and cutting an avocado.)
- Pour the melted chocolate into the saved mixing bowl and add the mashed avocado and honey. Mix until smooth.
- Once the oat mixture is out of the oven pour it into the chocolate-avocado mixture, along with the popped amaranth.
- Stir until everything is evenly blended and pour it into the parchment-lined baking pan. Use your hands to firmly press down, spreading it evenly into the corners of the pan. Then use a large, flat-bottomed metal spatula to press down again, to flatten it evenly.
- Cover the pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, and ideally overnight, before cutting it into 12 evenly sized bars.
Notes
Nutrition
Or try these No-Bake Energy Bites or Homemade Lara Bars.
Valentina K. Wein is a recipe developer, food photographer and owner of the popular food blog, Cooking On The Weekends. Her focus is working with whole foods to create beautiful, comforting recipes for casual entertaining. Outside the worlds of food and photography, Valentina’s other passion is her family (including her two young boys, her husband and her dog, Maple.)
You can also keep up with Valentina’s recipes on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.
I made these yesterday. I thought two things were funny. I read the chocolate article in Unprocessed Challenge 2013 on chocolate and substitutions. I did the NO NO and substituted cocoa powder (what I have on hand) for the dark chocolate. 2nd thing funny is I thought my avocado was okay….weeeeell when I opened some of it was not eatable. So I used sweet potato. I took a piece to work for breakfast! OMG! Delicious and I am so surprised! The flavor and textures…. GOOD!
Tanya – I LOVE the idea of using sweet potato! I think I’ll give that a go, too. 🙂
This popping amaranth is garbage!! I seriously tried to pop it with almost every pan I had. Hot hot pans. Which didn’t pop it, just burn it to a crisp. A very few would pop here and there – not really any at all. Now I am stuck with this expensive bag of amaranth. I best figure out how else to use it. I am moving on to the granola part, giving up on the amaranth.
Gah.
I admit I burned it the first time completely and I mean black but I thought a HOT pan meant HOT! I turned down heat and then I heard the popping and when it stopped I took off. It works but if like mean you wasted a couple spoonfuls first. Try again.
Sorry you had such a hard time with the amaranth. Just watch it super closely and I think you’ll have success. It might take a few more tries . . . And I do think the bars would still be delicious w/o it, so I hope that worked for you. 🙂
I’d really like to see nutritional info for these bars. Could you post that?
Hi Beverly, I don’t have the exact nutritional information, but I found this site where it looks like it’s easy to input recipes. . . . http://www.myfitnesspal.com/recipe/calculator Hope this helps! 🙂
Would flax meal work in place of almond meal for nut free?
Hi Karin, I haven’t tried this recipe with flax meal so I can’t say 100%, but I think it would be a fantastic substitution. 🙂
Thank you!
I used flax seed meal and it still turned out good!
Great! 🙂
You’re the sweetest, Greg. Thank you. 🙂
These breakfast bars are sweet, crunchy, and incredibly satisfying (and so very you). Gorgeous. GREG
What is amaranth
Amaranth is the seed of a large plant that’s related to beets, Swiss chard, spinach, and quinoa. (One plant produces approx. 60,000 seeds). The seeds are rich in protein and are said to contain about four times as much calcium as wheat and twice as much iron and magnesium. They are also gluten-free, and can be made into a flour.
Same question on the amaranth – anything else i could use? Chia seeds? sunflower seeds etc?
Sharon, yes, Chia seeds or sunflower seeds would work — anything tiny with a crunch. 🙂
i have everything on hand except for the amaranth- is there anything else I could possible substitute?
Any small grain or seed with a crunch to it would be good. (You could also omit it and the bars would still be yummy.)
I have some puffed kamut, can I use that instead of the popped amaranth?
Hi Stella. Yes you could add puffed kumat. I’m not sure it would give as much of a crunch, but it would still be delicious.