These gluten-free granola bars, aka Seed Bars, are easy and delicious! They are nut-free, oil- free and grain-free made with seeds and coconut- super crunchy, energizing, and satisfying.
These gluten-free granola bars require only 5-10 minutes of hands-on time before baking in the oven. High in protein and fiber, these nutritious bars make for a simple breakfast on the go or an energy-boosting midday snack!
Because they are full of little scrubbing seeds they do a great job of keeping your digestive system healthy!
What I personally love about them is how convenient they are as a “grab and go” snack- keeping me feeling energized and fueled whether I’m running errands, hiking or cross-country skiing. Easily transportable, I keep a little zip-lock bag tucked away in the glove compartment of my car for hunger emergencies. Pretty handy.
Gluten-Free Granola Bars Video
Why You’ll Love This!
- Diet-friendly. Nut-free, oil-free, paleo, dairy-free, gluten-free, and vegan adaptable!
- Super energizing. Perfect for on-the-go when you need a boost!
- Quick and easy. Only 5 minutes of hands-on time.
- So nutritious. Full of so many healthy ingredients that support a strong digestive system.
- High in protein. Perfect for a mid-day crash or post-workout.
Gluten-Free Granola Bar Ingredients
- Super seeds: raw pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, chia seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds (or hemp seeds)
- Large flaked coconut: unsweetened
- Salt
- Vanilla extract
- Honey: Or brown rice syrup or maple syrup. If you can have honey, it is ideal for flavor and binding!
How to Make Grain-Free Granola Bars
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
- Mix the seeds, coconut flakes, and salt together in a medium or large bowl. Stir in vanilla and warm honey.
- Place a piece of parchment in an 8 x 8 baking dish. Spray lightly with oil.
- Pour seed mix into a lightly greased, parchment-lined pan, and using a wet metal spatula, spread it out, into corners and edges and press down firmly until you have a compacted, smooth surface.
- Place on the middle rack in the oven, check at 25 mins, rotate if need be, and continue baking. For a chewy consistency, take them out at 40-45 minutes, for a crispy crunchy consistency, let it cook the full 50 -55 minutes. Remember, all ovens are different! Start watching at 35 min and remove when golden.
- Remove from oven, and cool completely. You could place it in the fridge to cool faster. When it’s completely cooled, take the parchment out of the pan, turn it over, and remove the parchment. Flip back over and cut into desired shapes or bars. Store at room temp.
FAQs
Wrap lightly in parchment and leave on the counter. Wrapping too tightly or placing in the fridge can cause them to soften.
Made with superfood seeds, these bars are high in protein and fiber and packed with health-boosting nutrients, vitamins and minerals! Many of the seeds are a great source of healthy fats too.
Use brown rice syrup or maple syrup with a tablespoon of ground flax. They may turn out slightly more crumbly. But still delicious!
Place the jar of honey in a bowl or small saucepan of hot water.
These bars are made up entirely of nutritious seeds (and coconut flakes), whereas granola bars are usually made with oats (and nuts or chocolate chips).
STORAGE
Leave your Seed Bars out on the counter wrapped in parchment, and they should stay crisp. The energy bars keep for up to 10 days!
We are on our third batch this month. I just make the Seed Bars and leave them out on the counter in the kitchen for easy snacking. They magically disappear!
Also, leaving them out, uncovered also keeps them nice and crisp.
Tell me what you think … I hope you love these Seed Bars as much as we do.
xoxo
More recipes you may like!
Gluten Free Granola Bars (Seed Bars)
- Prep Time: 5
- Cook Time: 55
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 10 1x
- Category: snack, breakfast
- Method: baked
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
These gluten-free granola bars, aka Seed Bars, are easy and delicious! They are nut-free, oil-free, and grain-free, made with seeds and coconut. They are super crunchy, energizing, and satisfying.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds ( raw)
- 1/2 cup sunflower seeds ( raw)
- 1 heaping cup large flaked coconut (unsweetened)
- 1/4 cup sesame seeds
- 1/4 cup chia seeds
- 1/4 cup flax seeds ( or sub hemp seeds )
- generous pinch salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 cup honey ( warmed for easier mixing- heat jar in a hot water bath) or brown rice syrup or maple syrup– see notes
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300F
- Mix the seeds, coconut flakes, and salt together in a medium bowl. Stir in vanilla and warm honey, until uniformly combined.
- Place a piece of parchment in an 8 x 8 baking pan ( all the way up the sides too). Spray lightly with oil.
- Pour seed mix into a lightly greased, parchment-lined pan, and using a wet metal spatula, spread it out, into corners and edges and press down firmly until you have a compacted, smooth surface at a uniform depth.
- Place on the middle rack in the oven, check at 25 mins, rotate if need be, and continue baking. For a chewy consistency, take them out at 40-45 minutes, for a crispy crunchy consistency, let it cook the full 50 -55 minutes. Keep in mind, all ovens are different, so heat may vary. The key is….You want to take them out when they are perfectly golden, before they get too dark. So watch them like a hawk after 35-40 minutes. If you take them out too early (before they are golden) they can too sticky. Pay attention to the color. For example, I’ve cooked these in two different ovens. In the gas oven, 50-55 minutes delivered perfectly golden bars. In the electric oven, 40 minutes were enough for perfectly golden. 55 minutes would have totally burnt them.
- Remove from oven, and cool completely. You could place it in the fridge to cool faster. When it’s completely cooled, take the parchment out of the pan, turn it over, and remove the parchment. Flip back over and cut into desired shapes or bars. Store at room temp.
Notes
To keep them crisp, wrap very lightly in parchment. Sealing them too tightly may cause them to get soft. I usually just leave them on a plate uncovered on the counter. Keeps up to 10 days.
You can easily make this vegan by substituting brown rice syrup, or maple syrup and 1 tablespoon ground flax. They may be slightly more crumbly, but not too bad!
Do NOT use sugar-free syrup- it will NOT work here. Honey or, brown rice syrup or real maple syrup!
If you don’t have an 8×8 pan, you could make a “crackle” on a sheet pan. Basically place the mixture on a parchment-lined sheet pan, pressing down hard with a spatula, into an 8-10-inch round. It will spread out and become thin in the oven. Check at 35-40 minutes and pull it out when it is deeply golden. Let it cool completely. Break apart into sections.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/10th of the recipe
- Calories: 222
- Sugar: 14.5 g
- Sodium: 34.4 mg
- Fat: 14.9 g
- Saturated Fat: 5 g
- Carbohydrates: 20.8 g
- Fiber: 4.5 g
- Protein: 5.3 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
My family loves this recipe! We always have some in the cupboard for a healthy go to snack. My friend loves it so much that I have made her a little kit in a jar with all the dry ingredients measured out and layered for her birthday! Don’t worry, I have made sure to give you full credit for the recipe ☺️Thank you!
haha! Thanks, love it… perfect!
I made these once and everyone loved them! This time I’m adding slivered toasted nori seaweed for a salty, umami taste. It’s in the oven now but I think it will be yummy.
I have made this recipe a few times tastes great.
However my bars do not look like yours and the parchment paper is the worst idea it’s impossible to remove from the bars. I suggest just filling mixture into muffin tins bottoms to 1.5 cm high or whatever thickness you like. Better for portion control also.
Muffin tins sound like a good idea! FYI, you need to lightly grease the parchment paper. ( And be sure it’s not wax paper).
I would love to add some oats to this to make it my morning go-to”. Do you recommend a specific type (rolled? quick? toast them before?)
Thanks!
So I’ve not tried with oats! Maybe toasted? Let me know how this turns out.
Excited to try this recipe. Sounds yummy and healthy. I will rate it after I try it.
Yum! I had all of these ingredients in my cupboard so this was incredibly easy to make! I ended up using half maple syrup and half golden syrup as that was the end of my bottle of maple and the seeds all stuck together perfectly and made great chewy bars. I used a silicone tin so no need to worry about parchment and it made a difference leaving them to cool 🙂 I’ve definitely bookmarked this for another time as both me and my husband enjoyed them so much! Thank you.
Awesome Cherry, glad you enjoyed!!!
These are fantastic. I used flax seed meal instead of flax seeds and no problem with the bar holding together.
Awesome and thanks, glad you enjoyed!
Hi just a question can we replace honey with jaggery?
It needs to be liquid.
Absolutely delicious and so easy to make. Better than any other snack bars I have purchased.
Mine has come out really crumbly. Does anyone know why? I thought I patted it down but maybe not hard enough? Also maybe not enough honey? Not sure what it is that makes it solid. Nice and tasty though.
Im so sorry about that! It might have been either, or a combo both- not pressing hard and not enough honey.
Any ideas for coconut replacement? My son is fruit ( coconut included) intolerant and I am looking to make a variety of healthy snacks.
Perhaps replace with more seeds or nuts?
Yes, coconut and dates tend to help bind bars so I was looking for input on a “binding” replacement as I can’t think of one. Plan to use 1/2 agave and 1/2 maple syrup in hopes they are not too crumbly. Making them tomorrow.
Thanks!
Ground flax seed could help.
I added some roasted oatmeal to mine which might act as binder, but I’m not sure.
Love the recipe but they needed toured half way Thu”the cooking stage. They are awesome.
I didn’t expect much from these energy bars – but still tried them ??. They are surprisingly tasty. One word of caution – I didn’t use the oil on my parchment (in fact I used foil) BIG MISTAKE – oil is needed to be able to lift off the energy bars from the paper.
Loved these! Hubby loved these. We ate them all in a week.
I bought ingredients to make today and could not find this recipe, so I made a similar inferior recipe. ☹️ I will eat them, but I saved this recipe because it is the best!
thanks! glad you found it again!
Well that is a good point! I guess I assumed that it wouldn’t go into the bar itself.
These bars are a wonderfully nutritious treat when you can’t eat sugar or gluten, and they are so easy to make. I added 14 dates (which I blended with the honey and vanilla in my nutribullet) and 2 Tbsp. cocoa which resulted in a very tasty and less crumbly bar and added a boost of magnesium!
Thanks for sharing how you adapted these to meet your needs.Love it!
Great pre workout bar.
Hi! Do you have experience with these lasting for a week unrefrigerated? Looking for a bar that will last for up to a week while backpacking..
They should ok, not refrigerated, but may get crumbly if jostled a lot. 🙂
Can you freeze them
Yes! Should freeze well!
Can you freeze them
Very tasty. Mine are crumbly, I think the packing it in hard is critical, I didn’t catch how important when I first tried it. Next time will definitely pack it in hard.
These are really yummy. I may try using raw date syrup to replace the honey. It may be more Paleo approved.
Please let me know how that works…been meaning to try it with Date syrup too!
These are really yummy. I may try using raw date syrup to replace the honey. It may be more Paleo approved.
these are yummy – I added natural peanut butter and sprinkled with chocolate chips out of the oven then spread after they started melting. Totally didn’t need to add as the bars are great all on their own but I love PB & chocolate with bars!
Yum!
How can they be sugar free when you use 1/2 cup of honey?
They are refined sugar-free.
Yes.