Homemade Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch Clif Bars

Have you ever had a Clif Bar? I have!

In fact, I used to buy them by the box and eat at least one a day. I studied the wrapper and decided to create my own version. My mission is to create a homemade version for every Clif Bar on the market.

But for now, here is the Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch version. These no-bake homemade Clif bars taste very close to the store bought ones, yet they're made with fresh ingredients right in your own kitchen, and you can save big bucks and still have high energy, protein rich bars to grab on the go or eat at your training sessions.

Ingredients:

1 cup dates (pitted and soaked for 5-10 minutes)

1 cup whole grain oats (certified Gluten Free)

1¼ cups crisp rice cereal
(or other crisp cereal)

¼ cup raw organic peanuts, coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons raw hempseeds

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon unrefined sea salt

½ cup natural peanut butter
(I prefer raw PB)

1/3 cup brown rice syrup

1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract

¼ cup mini dark chocolate chips (or a raw chocolate bar, chopped up)

Directions:

Use virgin coconut oil to grease an 8x8-inch pan; set aside. Pulse the soaked dates in a food processor until finely chopped (lumpy puree). In a large bowl, combine the pureed dates with the cereal, oats, peanuts, hempseeds, cinnamon and sea salt.

Over low-medium heat, combine the peanut butter and brown rice syrup in a small saucepan, stirring until melted and completely mixed. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract.

Pour the peanut butter mixture over the oat mixture and stir until well combined. Fold in the chocolate chips. Pour the mixture into the greased pan and firmly press and pack. Let the mixture sit for at least 1 hour, or until completely cooled and set. Cut into bars (I cut mine into smaller bite size squares to bring them on my runs) and store in a glass container in the refrigerator. If you want to take these on the go, you can wrap them individually in parchment paper or plastic wrap.