Craving granola bars that are simple, chewy, and better for you than store-bought? Make some of our best Gluten Free Granola Bars at home pack them for snacks and lunch! These also make awesome school snacks since they’re peanut free
Sometimes a girl just needs a sweet, chewy, dense little treat like the classic granola bar. Finding great granola bars that are good for you and fit into a special diet can be challenging, especially when you’ve got a bunch of food allergies.
A few years ago, I happened upon an incredibly delicious granola bar recipe that was a huge hit at my kid’s school (one of the best granola bar recipes I have ever found, Playgroup Granola Bars). Not super healthy, but seriously delicious. I decided to remake that great recipe to be allergy friendly since I was hankering for some great gluten free granola bars.
That’s how our Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Granola Bars were born!
These aren’t low in sugar, and they can be incredibly addictive, so they make a good dessert or occasional treat. You can always reduce some of the sugar and replace half of it with powdered baking Stevia instead, but the texture will change slightly.
Making gluten free granola bars
In times past I have attempted to lighten up this recipe by cutting back on the sugar and oil, but the texture just would never come out the same. The dense, chewy texture of these bars is what I love most about them, so I decided to leave the sugar and oil ratios alone, instead I subbed some allergy friendly and slightly healthier versions of ingredients.
And instead of the wheat germ in the original recipe, I use ground flaxseed in our gluten free granola bars. This has three purposes: it adds fiber, it adds moisture, and it acts as a binder since there is no gluten in these bars (gluten acts as a binder in wheat-based recipes).
This recipe can easily be doubled to bake in a 9×13-inch pan, just watch the baking time to make sure they get cooked through but don’t get burned. You don’t want to over-cook these granola bars or they will become pretty hard. Just cook until they have a nice golden color around the edge of the pan.
Check out our other great snack recipes!
And make sure not to wait till they are completely cool before cutting them. Once these come out of the oven, let them cool a little bit, then remove them from the pan and cut while still slightly warm, then cool completely. Once they are completely cooled, they are harder to cut.
We recently revamped this post originally published March 2013, here are a few of our old photos:
Best Gluten Free Granola Bars
Gluten Free, dairy free, whole grain; Free of: peanuts, dairy, eggs, soy
Ingredients
- 1 cup gluten free quick oats
- ⅓ cup whole grain sorghum flour OR brown rice flour
- ⅓ cup coconut sugar OR unbleached cane sugar
- ¼ cup ground flaxseed
- ¼ to ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ cup mini chocolate chips or raisins
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup + 1 Tablespoon honey
- ¼ cup light tasting olive oil OR melted coconut oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
- Line the bottom of an 8×8-inch square baking pan (we used a glass pan) with a piece of parchment paper so that 2 of the edges hang over the sides of the pan. Set aside
- In a medium bowl, mix together the oats, flour, coconut sugar, flax seed, cinnamon, salt, and mini chocolate chips or raisins
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the honey, melted coconut oil, and vanilla extract.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well with a spoon or with your hands
- Spread the mixture evenly into the prepared pan
- Bake for 20-25 minutes until the edges of the bars begin to turn golden brown. Watch these to make sure they don’t burn!
- Cool granola bars in the pan for about 10 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack by carefully lifting the parchment paper under the bars. Place on a wire rack and cool for another 10 minutes
- Cut the bars while they are still soft and then allow to cool completely. These bars will get harder once cooled completely, so cut them while they are soft. But The bars will fall apart if you try handling them too much before they do cool
- Enjoy!
Video
Nutrition
Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie. She’s a food allergy mom and allergy friendly food blogger of 12 years based in Wyoming. Sarah is also an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, ACE Certified Health Coach, Revolution Running certified running coach, and an ACE Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist
Just made them and I am obsessed! How would you recommend storing them?
Hi Lexi! I’d store these in an airtight container at room temperature for a few days. You can freeze them as well if you want to save some for later. 🙂
Just letting you know we made these tonight at our AHG troop meeting. And all the girls loved them! We made extra so we can pack them for our hiking trip.
That’s awesome!! So glad you loved these, and great idea for packing them for a hiking trip 🙂
Can’t wait to make these for my son he is missing granola bars!
Awesome! I bet he’ll love these, they are so good 🙂
We all deserve a treat every once in awhile and these are certainly in the treat category! YUM!
These definitely are a delicious treat, so good to bake up on cold days, too!
These look so great! I love the use of brown rice flour.
Thanks Kortney! I love using whole grain flour when I can, so many great health benefits!
Hello! Your recipe doesn’t the list adding the flour in the steps.
Hi Erin, thanks for pointing that out, I missed it somehow! I went ahead and fixed it so the flour is in the instructions (it’s mixed in with the dry ingredients). Cheers! 🙂
Your version of the recipe isn’t showing up. I’d love to know what you substituted.
Thanks so much for letting me know Sarah! When I merged my blogs some of my recipes that were in a plugin got switched around and lost. I re-printed the recipe for you!
Do you know the nutritional value of the recipe?
Here are the approximate values when made with the chocolate chips:
Nutrients per bar (1/12 batch):
173 cal
7.5 g fat
25 g carb
2 g fiber
13.5 g sugar
2.5 g protein
I will add this into the recipe post 🙂
These look so yummy. Think I could substitute almond meal for the brown rice flour? Don’t have any on hand.
Hi Tanya! you could try using almond flour in this recipe, but I am not sure how it would turn out. I haven’t used almond flour much so I can’t guarantee the results, but if you do try it, let me know how it turns out for you!
we made these tonight and they taste GREAT! I will definitely make these over and over (and then give most of them away since they are so darn tasty)
Awesome to hear you love these! They are so delicious 🙂
Yum! These look SO good!! I’m going to start experimenting with gluten-free coooking more and I’m excited to try these as a snack!
These are amazing! I can’t make them very often because I end up eating too many 😉
Seriously – package those up and sell them at Whole Foods! You would make some serious MOOLA!
Hey, that’s a great idea! 🙂
LOOK AMAZING!!!!!!
Thank you Jody 🙂
Looks great– think I could use spelt flour in place of brown rice flour? I don’t have any brown rice flour…
Absolutely, spelt flour would work great in this recipe! Keep an eye on the bars as the baking time might change slightly.