About a month ago, I started making my own protein bars.
Yeah, I know, who does that? The truth is, I have always enjoyed eating various protein bars—they usually smash my 2 pm chocolate craving, and they fill me up enough to hit the 5 pm boxing class.
However, when I switched to the Paleo diet, I found a whopping TWO protein bars that I could eat, and they were nearly $4 a piece.
That shit is just not going to fly.
So, when the manager of my gym started posting recipes for her own protein bars, bites, brownies, etc., I really got to thinking. I cook and bake nearly everything else on my own, why not make my own protein bars?
While I borrowed and researched all sorts of different recipes, and I altered pretty much all of them, but the one that I’ve had the most success with so far, is a recipe I took from Gimme Some Oven. Here’s the recipe:
- 1 cup dry oatmeal (I used coconut flour)
- 2/3 cup toasted coconut flakes (I used unsweetened)
- 1/2 cup peanut butter (I used Trader Joe’s Almond Butter)
- 1/2 cup ground flax seed or wheat germ
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips or cacao nibs (optional)
- 1/3 cup honey or maple syrup
- 1 tbsp chia seeds (optional)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Note: I didn’t use the chia seeds, and since I used natural almond butter, it was a tad more oily than I expected, but I just thickened it up with about 2 scoops of chocolate protein powder.
Stir all of the ingredients together, cover and let chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Then, roll into balls of any size—the ones in the picture are about 1-inch in diameter. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.
These are delicious and healthy—and now I’ve always got a fridge full of protein-packed snacks!
The Bitter Lemon 
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