Healthy 5-Ingredient Granola Bars

I have been wanting to try homemade granola bars for a while, but somehow thought they would be hard to make. My general plan when searching for a recipe is to type it in a search engine and use one of the first few that pop up. Lucky for me this one was in the top four when searching "how to make homemade granola bars with oatmeal."

Only 5 ingredients? Awesome!

No bake? Double-awesome!

Don't these look yummy? Oh, they are. And I even got a thumbs up from my husband who seemed genuinely surprised when he agreed they were good.

You will need to go here for the recipe which I found on the Minimalist Baker blog. I have no doubt that I will be going back there to pick up a few more new recipes! What to expect at the Minimalist Baker: Simple recipes that even the novice cook can approach. Always delicious, often sweet, never complicated.

Here are a few more shots taken while I was making these.

 I wanted my oats toasted so I started them first.

I used my Pampered Chef food chopper on the roasted almonds.

I also used the food chopper on the dates. This was kind of tricky as I had to shake them to the bottom each time but worked pretty well. I followed that up with a knife on any leftover big pieces.

These are the last two of the 5-Ingredient Granola Bars.

Makes 8 bars.

This was my first time trying a date. I still can't say I know what one tastes like because they were mixed in with the other ingredients, but in the words of the lady who works in the natural/bulk section at Fred Meyer, they are "flipping delicious." I will have to take a bite before throwing them in the bowl next time!

Hope you give these a try... and come let me know how they turned out!