I love finding new recipes for high-protein snacks, especially healthy protein bars, because I’d rather make them at home than pay more for ready-made ones that are heavily processed.
Fuelling your body with lots of protein supports muscle recovery after a workout, plus it can help with weight maintenance because it’s very filling, so you are less likely to give in to sugary cravings.
I picked out a few high-protein snack recipes I liked the look of on Instagram, but I have to admit that two out of three I made were total disasters.
The banana bread didn’t rise, and it achieved the unwanted combination of burnt on top and uncooked in the middle, while the choc chip cookies with “healthy benefits” (made with chia and pumpkin seeds as well as chickpeas) looked great but tasted of nothing.
I’m pleased to say it was a case of third time lucky with the high-protein granola bars by creator James Bok. In fact, I’ll definitely be baking these again as they were tasty, quick to make and packed with nutrients. The banana adds a subtle sweetness that is just right for someone like me who doesn’t really have a sweet tooth, and because it’s all natural ingredients, bar the protein powder, they don’t have that artificial aftertaste that many processed shop-bought bars have.
The bars also have a really good crunchy texture thanks to the nuts, chia and pumpkin seeds. If you want to avoid using protein powder, Bok recommends only using one banana and blending some peanut butter with the oats so that the mix binds together well.
How to make the granola bars
This recipe makes eight servings so that’s over a week’s worth of high-protein snacks ready to go. Each bar contains 16g of protein—32% of your daily recommended intake (although that will depend on the brand of protein powder you use, and if you are vegan, make sure you use a plant-based protein powder like pea, hemp, brown rice or soy).
They are rich in healthy fats from the pumpkin seeds, coconut oil and almonds, and with 6g fiber per serving, they are also good for the gut and heart.
At 317 calories per bar, they are quite high in calories for a snack, but you could half the portion size to counteract that.
The coconut oil also makes them rather high in saturated fats (6-8g per bar, which is 30% of the recommended daily limit), but again you could reduce the amount of coconut oil in the recipe from two tablespoons to one.
If you want to make the bars lower fat, you could also halve the almonds or add more oats.
