Healthier, homemade crunch bars are made with (almost) all whole ingredients and much less sugar than the kind you’ll buy in the store!
If there’s one thing you can count on working in an office, it’s that there’s always one person who has a really awesome candy jar at her desk.
Well, maybe if your office is big enough. I haven’t seemed to find that person at my new job yet, but when I was at UT Dallas, there was always a big bowl of chocolate ready for you to dig your hands into.
Every once in a while, when I was having a particularly trying day in the lab, I’d walk down to Linda’s office for some lighthearted conversation and pick over the candy bowl. It was sort of like trick-or-treating when I was little. All the good pieces seem to go fast, and then you’re stuck trying to choose between Whoppers or something that isn’t really chocolaty and hardly worth calling candy. Finding the candy bowl freshly filled was like hitting the jackpot!
Especially when they were filled with Mini Hershey’s Krackel bars, you know, the kind that is the way too small version of a Crunch Bar.
Only the best candy bar on the planet!
You see, I am a big fan of Snickers. And Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Both are also great in the form of a Dairy Queen Blizzard. But nothing seems to beat that crackly goodness of a Crunch Bar!
Except maybe a giant pan of homemade crunch bars – a healthier version with less sugar than you’ll find in the store-bought brands!
I thought about making these after I did a few batches of Lindsay’s frozen peanut butter cups. They were delicious, and I wanted to try and recreate my all-time favorite. I made them more chocolaty and added just the right amount of Rice Krispie crunch.
What’s even better is that these can be ready to go in just about 30 minutes! The first time I made these, I lined a cookie sheet with aluminum (which I later realized wasn’t really necessary). I was then able to peel them up and snap them into different sized pieces. The next few times I made them, I poured the batch in a loaf pan to cut them into thicker pieces.
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Healthier Homemade Crunch Bars
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 12 1x
Description
Healthier, homemade crunch bars are made with (almost) all whole ingredients and much less sugar than the kind you’ll buy in the store!
Ingredients
- ¼ cup dark chocolate chips
- ½ cup of coconut oil
- ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tablespoons natural peanut butter
- 1 cup crispy rice cereal
Instructions
- Add chocolate chips to a bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir. Microwave additional 15-30 seconds. (Make sure to watch closely, so they don’t burn.)
- Add coconut oil and peanut butter. Microwave additional 30 seconds.
- Stir mixture together, and stir in cocoa powder completely. Then stir in crispy rice cereal.
- Pour into pan to get desired thickness. Freeze for 30 minutes before digging in!
Notes
1 serving is 4 Weight Watchers points.
- Prep Time: 35 mins
- Category: Healthy Desserts
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 22 grams (1/12 batch)
- Calories: 149
- Sugar: 2.8
- Sodium: 37
- Fat: 13.7
- Saturated Fat: 9.4
- Unsaturated Fat: 0.7
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 7.3
- Fiber: 1
- Protein: 1.6
- Cholesterol: 0.3
I used my own homemade peanut butter (using my normal recipe for cinnamon peanut butter, but a batch without cinnamon). You can use the type of dark chocolate of your choice, as well as the brand of crispy rice cereal. I used a generic brand!
We were big fans of these homemade crunch bars. They were delicious broken up into Greek yogurt for a nice little dessert!
And, of course, they really didn’t last all that long!
Up next week for Healthy Dessert Month are peanut butter truffles. Stay tuned!
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CANDY BAR? DO YOU LIKE ANY CANDY THAT ISN’T CHOCOLATE?
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