10 Tasty Homemade Protein Bar Recipes

This healthy diet thing ain’t much fun at times, is it?

Especially when you’re told you need to ditch the sweet treats if you want to get in good shape.

I’ve got to admit, my first piece of nutritional advice to anyone looking to improve their health / fitness / body composition / energy levels / the way they feel…is to cut sugar out of their diet as much as possible.

Too much of the white stuff makes you fat, sick and will ruin your hopes of a good physique. For more info on that front check out my previous article ’10 Simple Ways To Cut Out Sugar, Burn Fat And Boost Your Health’.

But I know it ain’t always easy, especially if you’ve always had a sweet tooth and have snacked on chocolate for years. It can be like drug withdrawal symptoms!

“The solution? Home-made protein bars…”

I used to love honey oat bars I’d buy from a health food store and I’d have one with a cup of tea (with two sugars) as a mid-afternoon snack at work.

I bought boxes of these bars for about a year before I finally looked at the nutritional info on the wrapper…and realised they definitely weren’t healthy.

Between one bar and my cup of tea I was having about 18g of sugar – nearly 75% of the recommended daily allowance.

It had to go, but it was hard because this way of eating was a habit now – and I still craved that sweet mid-afternoon snack.

The solution? Home-made protein bars…without the added sugar and other garbage ingredients.

Whether you snack mid-morning, mid-afternoon, or just need a chocolate fix of some sort…the 10 homemade protein bar recipes in this article can sort you out. They’ll keep your healthy diet right on track – with the bonus of bumping up your protein intake to help build muscle.

First, we’ll get started with the Chocolate Protein Bar recipe I’ve been using for years.

Homemade Protein Bars…Let’s Get Cookin’

INGREDIENTS:

2 scoops of chocolate protein powder
2 tablespoons of oats
2 tablespoons of linseed
2 handfuls of mixed seeds (or alternatively use crushed walnuts)
2 tablespoons of organic unsweetened peanut butter
4oz (half a glass) of almond milk
1 tablespoon of Stevia
1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder

STEP 1: Gather all of the above ingredients. Put a pinny on. Pretend you’re on MasterChef.

STEP 2: Add the protein powder, oats, linseed, seeds, Stevia and cinnamon powder to a bowl. Then mix it all up with a spoon. Like a boss.

STEP 3: Add the almond milk to moisten the mixture. You may need to add a little more almond milk, but you don’t want it to be too runny. Next add in the two tablespoons of peanut butter and stir it thoroughly into the mixture.

STEP 4: The peanut butter will help congeal the mixture. Now use your hands to push it all together firmly and roll it into a big ball.

STEP 5: Rip chunks of the mixture off the ball and shape them into bars. (You should be able to make 4 decent sized ones with this amount of ingredients). Place them on a foil baking tray and use a little olive oil or butter to grease the bottom so the protein bars don’t stick when cooked. Bake at 200 / gas mark 6 for 25-30 mins.

STEP 6: Whip your amazing cooking creations out of the oven and smell those little beauties. Forget the fact that they look like baked turds….because they taste awesome. 😉

chocolate protein bars - Weight Training Is The Way

Each protein bar provides approximately (…I did the maths in my head): Calories – 275; Protein – 22g; Carbs – 13g; Fat – 13g.

9 More Healthy Protein Snacks

After scouring the internet for other healthy home-made protein bars/cookies/snacks I came across these outstanding ones listed below. I’ve not tried all of them yet, but they look awesome.

They’re also a much better option than protein bars you can buy in the store – which have a higher sugar content and are filled all sorts of other additives.

For example I bought a ‘Protein Power Bar’ for £2.49 ($4) yesterday and it contained various ingredients including invert sugar syrup, fructose syrup and oligofructose syrup.

Nope, I have no clue what that last one is either! Rather than eating some obscure man-made ingredients, a much better option is making these yourself.

#2 Vanilla Coconut Protein Balls – thelittlegreenspoon.com

#3 No Bake Protein Cookies – ifoodlife.com

#4 Power Protein Balls – cavemanstrong.com

#5 Protein Packed Power Balls – lifemadefull.com

#6 Chocolate Coconut Protein Cookie Balls – guiltykitchen.com

#7 No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Bars – makingthymeforhealth.com

#8 Protein And Cranberry Balls – paleodietaustralia.com

#9 Ultimate Energy Bites – deliciouslyella.com

#10 Protein Raisin Cookies – myprotein.com