No Bake Chewy Granola Bars

I wanted to repost this in case you missed it. It's one of our most popular pins on Pinterest.

My kids especially like chewy granola bars but they seem to be one of those things that just keep going up in price and I'm not sure how healthy they actually are. I have tried a gazillion recipes and my daughter repeatedly gave the thumbs down....until this recipe! This one actually tastes better than the store bought kind. YAY!! It took me under 10 minutes to make them-love that! I adapted this recipe from Two Peas and Their Pods.

So here's what you need:

1/4 c unsalted butter
1/4 c brown sugar
1/4 c honey
1/4 c creamy peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups oats, I use old fashioned oats, but the recipe calls for quick oats
1/2 c crispy rice cereal

OPTIONAL: (3/4 c.) chopped pretzels, (1/4 c.) mini Reese's pieces, mini M&Ms, mini chocolate chips, ground flax seeds

Spray pan or put a square of parchment on the bottom of an 8x8 inch baking pan.
In a large sauce pan, add butter, brown sugar, honey and peanut butter. Heat over med-low heat, stirring occasionally until the mixture starts to bubble. Once it bubbles, cook for 2 minutes while stirring. Remove from heat, add vanilla extract.
Stir in oats, crispy rice, and if you used pretzels add those. Stir until coated, pour into pan and press evenly. Sprinkle with mini candies or choc. chips and gently press into mixture.( I only put the mini M&M's on some of them and they kept falling off, so the next batch I didn't add them, plus I felt like they were a little healthier without them)
Put in refrigerator and let cool at least 30 minutes, then cut into bars. I wrapped mine individually for easy, quick snacks to go. I cut them like granola bars and got 10 from this recipe. Enjoy!

***UPDATE: 2/19/13***
I took a suggestion from one of our comments and made the latest batch with Nutella. They got mixed reviews at my house. I thought they were delicious, and I'm not crazy about Nutella. My kids, who really like Nutella, didn't like the bars. I thought they tasted like chewy chocolate granola bars. I did miss the peanut butter, so I think next time I might try using Nutella and peanut butter. I followed the same recipe but substituted Nutella instead of the peanut butter and didn't add any additional candy pieces or pretzels. -Thanks Jodi for the suggestion! We love getting new ideas to try!

~Simply Angie

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