Do you have a fondness for larabars? I, personally, am not a huge fan of these date-based bars, but my family loves them. Since the ingredients are clean, I will buy them on occassion. But, honestly, at over a dollar per bar, what family can afford these bars on a regular basis?
After months and months of telling my kids that I would try making some myself, today I finally did it. They are super easy to make and the possibilities for the types of bars you can create are endless. Oh, and they taste better than any Larabar that I’ve purchased. Here’s what I used:
- 4 cups of medjool dates
- 2 cups of raw almonds
- 1 (3 oz) bar of dark chocolate (I used Theo 70%)
- 2 heaping Tbsp. almond butter (more if you need it)
- 1 tsp. sea salt
Because I have a small food processor, I worked in batches. If you have a large food processor, this may not be necessary.
1. First I ground up the almonds and chocolate together until fine– but not too fine.
2. Leave half of the almond-chocolate mixture in the food processor and set the other half aside.
3. Add half tsp. sea salt, 2 cups of dates, and 1 heaping Tbsp. of almond butter and process until combined. Transfer into a large bowl.
4. Now process the remaining chocolate-almond mixture, sea salt, dates and almond butter. Add to the large bowl.
5. Wet your hands, further combine the mixture, and press firmly (as in, as hard as you can) into a parchment lined 13×9 pan. Let the parchment hang over the ends so that you can lift the bars out.
6. Cover and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight. Lift the bars out of the pan and slice into desired size.
Shared at: Fat Tuesday, Seasonal Celebration, Monday Mania, Fight Back Friday
Since the ingredients are clean….lol, that’s exactly my mind set about food. Thanks for being of a similar mind. It is encouraging.
There are so few “products” that fall into that category!
I will make these when I can add fruit back into my diet. They sound delicious. I love Larabars!
Thanks for the recipe! These are my go-to bars when I travel because they are gluten-free and when you’re on the road, it’s not always easy to find allergy safe food. I don’t buy them all the time because of the prohibitive cost. Where do you find the dates?
I buy them at my co-op, but I have also seen them packaged in the produce section of the regular grocery stores.
Costco carries dried dates in the produce section. They used to carry large packages and now they are really pretty small. Any Arabic market carries them and they tend to be moister and less shelf stable (so refrigerate it not eating soon) but make great bars because of their moisture. My mom started making things like this in the 70s using a meat grinder attached to the table.
Thanks for the lovely recipe. We are always looking for winning bar recipes to have on hand. I bookmarked this for our next batch.
Wow these look sooo good! We love all these ingredients and the thought of them all together in such a delightful bar (salivating) – going to make these this weekend! Rebecca @ Natural Mothers Network x
I love chocolate bars. And I love medjol dates so much. I usually take them plain without any works to change it into a new dishes. But this recipe makes me think twice to eat the dates plain. If I can get double craziness of this dates why should I take them plain? Yes, I’m getting crazy about it
Will try it tomorrow.
Enjoy Yui!
I started my healthy snack company Smart-Bites.com for exactly this reason. Real clean food, no additives or preservatives good for every age. Nuts, grains (or not), seed, dried fruits. Regular or gluten free Paleo versions. Definitely make your own snacks and freeze, try and buy in bulk with friends. I love how folks are getting back in their kitchens!!!
That’s fantastic, PJ! We need more options like that!
Yummy! I have the worst sweet tooth right now, going to give them a try with Sunflower seeds.
I just made these last night – my 1st attempt with making lara bars ever – looked just like the photo above but crumby so I thought it would harden overnight but it didn’t then I remembered the part in the recipe that said to wet your hands so I put the mixture back into the bowl and added water until the mix stuck together I just put it back into the fridge wish me luck
[...] Chocolate Almond Lara Bars from Real Food Freaks. Yikes! These look good! [...]
I made these today, i substituted half the almonds for sun flower seeds. delish! I will make this again.
Good idea, I may try that too!
I might try this with pecans instead of almonds (I eat Mounds instead of Almond Joys~ don’t like almonds- LOL!)
I’m sure they will be great, Laila. I made a new batch today and used a combo of sunflower seeds and almonds. You can pretty much combine whatever nuts / seeds you want within the ratio.
Where can you buy them? It would be great to buy first, some of us are not good cooks or bakers. Thank you.
Grocery stores, Target, Amazon and Vitacost carry them.