Make Your Own Larabars
Oct 14, 2012, Updated Sep 27, 2017
Congrats on taking the October Unprocessed challenge! Revamping your diet is no easy task, but rest assured it does get easier over time and eventually even becomes your “new normal.” And I am speaking from experience.
In May of 2010, our family decided to take a little challenge of our own. We went from being a typical suburban family that made our sandwiches on white bread, ate highly processed treats after almost every meal, regularly purchased that blue box macaroni, had never before shopped at the farmers market, and had never bought anything that was organic (at least not on purpose) to a family that decided to take a “100 Days of Real Food” pledge.
For 100 solid days the four of us avoided all refined grains (including white flour), all refined sweeteners (including white sugar!), and anything out of a package with more than five ingredients. We took this pledge to draw attention to how much Americans have come to depend on highly processed food and here we are more than two years later still going strong. The pledge ended up being a life-changing experience for me personally, and knowing what I know now…I could never go back to the way things used to be!
I am thrilled that there are others, like Andrew, on our very same mission. And I am so glad he’s invited all of you to join us! To add to Andrew’s long list of amazing resources that he’s pulled together for this year’s October Unprocessed I’d like to share my homemade “Larabar” recipes with you below. Good luck with your transition to real food!
Homemade Larabars (Peanut Butter/ Cashew)
Ingredients
- 1 cup Medjool dates, pitted
- 1 cup raw cashews
- ¼ cup peanut butter
- 1 tablespoon water
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a food processor and puree until mixture starts to stick together.
- Remove date mixture and squeeze together into one big clump with your hands. Mash it down on a cutting board or sheet of wax paper to form into one even rectangle shape using the sides of your hands (or a knife) to make the edges straight.
- Slice into 12 even squares. For best results store in the fridge, although bars can be kept at room temperature.
Nutrition
Homemade Larabars (Granola)
Ingredients
- 1 cup homemade cooked granola
- ½ cup Medjool dates, pitted
- 1 tablespoon water
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a food processor and puree until mixture starts to stick together.
- Remove date mixture and squeeze together into one big clump with your hands. Mash it down on a cutting board or sheet of wax paper to form into one even rectangle shape using the sides of your hands (or a knife) to make the edges straight.
- Slice into 8 even squares. For best results store in the fridge, although bars can be kept at room temperature.
Nutrition
Homemade Larabars (Nut Free)
Ingredients
- 1 cup seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, or mixture of both
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- Two big pinches salt
- 1 cup Medjool dates, pitted
- 1 ½ tablespoons water
Instructions
- Combine seeds with olive oil and salt and mix together thoroughly. Toast coated seeds in toaster oven, a pan on the stove (on low heat), or standard oven on 350 degrees F until slightly brown.
- Combine toasted seeds, dates and water in a food processor and puree until mixture starts to stick together.
- Remove date mixture and squeeze together into one big clump with your hands. Mash it down on a cutting board or sheet of wax paper to form into one even rectangle shape using the sides of your hands (or a knife) to make the edges straight.
- Slice into 8 even squares. For best results store in the fridge, although bars can be kept at room temperature.
Nutrition
Homemade Larabars (Peanut Butter)
Ingredients
- 1 cup Medjool dates, pitted
- ½ cup peanut butter
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a food processor and puree until mixture starts to stick together.
- Remove date mixture and squeeze together into one big clump with your hands. Mash it down on a cutting board or sheet of wax paper to form into one even rectangle shape using the sides of your hands (or a knife) to make the edges straight.
- Slice into 8 even squares. For best results store in the fridge, although bars can be kept at room temperature.
Nutrition
Lisa Leake is a wife, mother, foodie, blogger and author of the #1 New York Times Best-Seller, 100 Days of Real Food. She began chronicling her family’s journey on 100DaysofRealFood.com when in 2010 they decided to start seeking out the real food in our processed food world. What started as a simple pledge has turned into a valuable and practical resource that’s now read by millions around the globe. Lisa has appeared on Dr. Oz, Good Morning America, CNN, and The Doctors TV Show. Follow Lisa on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
These look like great recipes! Thank you so much! I have jumped on the unprocessed “band-wagon” with both feet, but my husband is dragging his. I think even he will like these! And our four year old son most certainly will! I am new to this though, can some give me a hint as to where I can find medjool dates?
I’ve found ’em at Costco…
This website nuts.com looks good! Not as cheap as Costco ($8.49 for a 2 lb. box) but pretty good.
Thank you for the recipes. I love Larabars.
This is a really inspiring story – I’m going over to your blog to read. We are eating very healthy: lots of fresh vegetables, whole grains, legumes, rarely ever processed foods but I (and the kids) am addicted to sugar.
so I bake all the cakes / cookies/ muffins myself from scratch and try to incorporate a lot of whole wheat (I even made excellent cookies with quinoa flour) and we try to eat good quality chocolate but still – it all contains sugar (I don’t live in the US and we don’t have things like raw chocolate etc here). I hope I’ll find inspiration for quitting on your blog. I really want to kick that habit!
I think I’m going to try the first 2 recipes later on this week and see if my kids like them.
Terrific recipes! Thank you for sharing all these variations. I am always looking for more snack ideas to pop into my sons’ lunches.
These are great. I am wondering is there a place I can find the nutrition assay on the wonderful recipes I have found during this challenge. We are making the jump to real food and I have several dietary considerations ie diabetic, geriatric, and athletic concerns for protein, carbs and fat content in the recipes. Since I am unfamiliar with these foods I need some guidance. I understand that balance is important and just because it is real does not mean that you can eat whatever you want. We are trying to fuel ourselves and loose weight, build muscles and balance blood sugars. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I feel so empowered by how simple you make an otherwise very overwhelming lifestyle change. Thanks
I punched in the ingredients and amount of bars one of the recipes makes and got these results in nutritiondata.self.com (you do need to make an account to do this but it’s free). You just need to make sure you put in the number of servings the recipe makes.
I used the cashew cookie recipe (subbed in deglet dates as they are less expensive).
Per serving:
calories 219 (129 from fat)
total fat 15g (3g saturated)
sodium 5mg
total carb 17g (sugars 10g)
protein 8g
Tried to make the cashew Larabars today. Don’t know what I did wrong but mixture was too sticky to even smooth out. So, instead I rolled it out into small balls and put in refridgerator. (Didn’t want to waste all the ingredients I used). They taste great…just like the store-bought ones!
Any ideas what I did wrong? Mixed too long? Added too much water?
I tried the granola ones had the same problem I have them in the fridge right now maybe they will be non-sticky after they are cold 🙂 taste yummy! Any help would be appreciated. New to this but determined to eat healthy! 🙂
Homemade lara bars are kinda sticky- I always roll them into balls- I love the size of just a couple bites. You should add water just a few drops at a time- that might help. If you use a piece of wax paper like she suggested it can be easier to press them down.
Putting wax paper above and below the bar while you make it into the desired shape will help. Or getting your hands wet first. Glad you could salvage them!
Thanks for not one, not two, but four awesome recipes! Your site is a true inspiration!
Why thank you for that! 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing these! I am getting ready to do a long long long backpacking trip, and I was trying to find some home-made recipes for bars. Can’t wait to try these!
I’m with you, Lisa. When this challenge is over, I’m not going back! Thanks for the recipes!
LIKE!
Love the recipes. Thanks for sharing.