No-Bake Sunflower Butter Granola Bars
Updated March 26, 2019
No-Bake Sunflower Butter Granola Bars-easy homemade granola bars that are nut-free and great for school lunches, hiking, road trips, and every day snacking!
Caleb started preschool this week and is loving it. Every night he asks if he can sleep in his school clothes so he can wake up ready to go. He doesn’t want to miss anything. I hope that excitement lasts until he is in high school:)
To celebrate Caleb’s first week of preschool, I have a fun back to school snack today, No-Bake Sunflower Butter Granola Bars. A lot of schools are going nut-free because of allergies so instead of using peanut butter to make the granola bars I used sunflower butter, which is a great alternative to peanut butter. These easy granola bars are safe to pack in lunch boxes and the the kids will love them!
You can find sunflower butter at almost any grocery store. Look for it next to the peanut butter. It is creamy and delicious!
I love these granola bars because they are easy to make. You can whip up a batch in no time! Plus, they taste so much better than store bought.
I like to add mini chocolate chips and chocolate covered sunflower seeds. The chocolate covered sunflower seeds add a fun pop of color! FYI-I buy them at Trader Joe’s. If you can’t find them, you can just use mini chocolate chips. They will still be tasty!
And good news, the granola bars will keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. I love having a pan in the fridge for lunch boxes, hiking, road trips, and every day snacking!
If you are looking for a fun back to school treat, make No-Bake Sunflower Butter Granola Bars. The kiddos will love them! Enjoy!
No-Bake Sunflower Butter Granola Bars
Ingredients
- 2 cups quick oats we use gluten-free oats
- 1 cup crispy rice cereal
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup sunflower butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup chocolate covered sunflower seeds
- 2 tablespoons mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- Cut out an 8 x 8 inch square of parchment paper. Place the parchment paper in the bottom of an 8 x 8 inch baking pan.
- In a medium bowl, combine the oats, cereal, and salt. Stir and set aside.
- In a large sauce pan, add butter, brown sugar, honey and sunflower butter. Heat over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally until the mixture starts to bubble. Once bubbling, cook for 2 minutes while stirring. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract.
- Stir in the oat and cereal mixture. Stir until well coated. Pour into the prepared pan and press the mixture evenly into the pan. Sprinkle the chocolate covered sunflower seeds and mini chocolate chips over the top and gently press into the granola bars with your hands.
- Place the bars in the refrigerator and let cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting. Cut into bars and serve.
- Note-I store the bars in the refrigerator. I've kept them in the fridge for up to two weeks and they are still tasty! I buy chocolate covered sunflower seeds at Trader Joe's. You can find sunflower butter at almost any grocery store by the peanut butter.
Have you tried this recipe?
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Perfect! Easy… Can’t wait to try them for grown up me!
Love the eye popping color in the chocolate covered sunflower seeds. With my girls, everything has to be pink and purple, no exceptions!!! They will drool over these. So cute. The store bought versions have so much junk in them….no thanks now that my daughter is a big, bad kindergartener.
Pink and purple is always a good idea:)
Yea for fun and bright snacks!
We use sun butter all of the time – i love it – and the chocolate covered sunflower seeds are so adorable!
YEAH! FINALLY, someone who appreciates Sun butter! Thank you. Ive been just simply substituting pnut butter w/sun butter for several yrs, its great to see a recipe that originally uses it as an ingredient =) I haven’t had anyone even notice the difference between the two in my cookies & frostings etc, but I persnoally like it better. Love these! Thanks for sharing.
We love it at our house! Enjoy!
Thanks for sharing a Sunbutter recipe. My son has a peanut allergy so we eat it all the time. Baking with it is great too, although I buy the no sugar added when I bake with Sunbutter. Thanks!
You are welcome! I hope your son likes the granola bars.
These are such a great snack! Love this recipe!
I love those fun little chocolate covered sunflower seeds! Lets be realโฆI like anything covered in chocolate!
I love these colorful granola bars!!!
addicted to those chocolate covered sunflower seeds! and they add the best pop of color to these granola bars!
I can’t remember how I stumbled upon this recipe, but I’m glad I did. Sunflower seed butter is so good and I’ve been enjoying baking with this delicious seed butter. I want to try this recipe soon because it looks so good. I like your blog and look forward to pinning more of your recipes.
look amazing! going to try them… thank you
I can’t wait to try these! Thanks for giving people a recipe that’s safe for peanut-free lunch time!! My son has a deadly peanut allergy and the more options people have the happier they are and the safer allergy kids are!!
Hi,
Have you ever substituted peanut butter for the sunflower butter?
Thanks,
You can use peanut butter.
Awesome recipe – thank you! We really, really enjoyed them, and it will be put into regular rotation now that school is IN, much to my five-year-old’s chagrin… darned school is cramping a certain lego lifestyle : )
Just made a batch of these granola bars and they are delicious! My little guy is in Kindergarten and I’m so happy to send him in with a snack like this! They definitely won’t last two weeks in our fridge! Can you freeze them? Just thinking if I wanted to double the recipe. Thanks!
Just made these…waiting to see how they taste. When you spread the sunflower seeds and chocolate chips on top they didn’t stick very well unless you pressed hard. Since the oats were still warm, it melted the chocolate chips and was breaking the chocolate off the sunflower seeds. I felt that if I didn’t press hard enough, they were all going to fall off. Did you try mixing in the seeds/chips into the oats? I wonder if that would work better, or maybe eliminating the chips completely since they melted so easily? I’m sure they taste great but mine look a mess ๐
I haven’t tried mixing them in. I just pressed them in and they stayed for me. Sorry you had issues.
Love this recipe! We’ve made them three times already! Can you freeze them? Thanks.
These are delicious!!! A pumkin flavored spinoff of these bars would be ahhhmazing!
I tried these again mixing the sunflower seeds in with the oats and rice mixture and it worked perfectly. No melting and they weren’t broke by me pushing them into the bars! I also think it helps the sunflower seeds stay better and not fall off the bars when they’re mixed in. I did omit the chocolate chips because I was afraid they would melt too. May try and mix those in next time. Thanks!
So, I started making these a little bit ago to have a good snack around. My husband instantly became obsessed with them. He is on a sub and for a short underway I made him a double batch since he barely eats during it. He came back and there were a couple guys in his division who were begging for more. I made double batches for my husband and 2 of his coworkers, so 60 bars in all for this last short underway. Now even more people are obsessed with them and I’m waiting for the day I’m asked to make them for the entire boat.
I am so happy your husband and his coworkers love the granola bars! Yay!
Is it possible to use regular rolled oats in these bars instead of quick cooking ones? Thanks for your help!
The bars might not hold together as well, but I am sure they would still work!
Where do you find chocolate covered sunflower seeds? I have never heard of or seen them. Makes for a very good looking snack.
Trader Joes carries them
Thank you for this recipe! I have made it three times. This last time was a quadruple batch, in fact, for our upcoming vacation. I have altered the recipe, though it is great as is. I like to use half the amount of sugar and half the amount of honey (using more sunbutter to make up for the lesser amount of honey as binding agent). It was too sweet for my taste buds, which is saying a lot as I routinely eat bags of haribo sour gummy bears ๐ ย crushed Almonds make a nice mix-in, too. Thank you again for the inspiration!
Has anyone tried freezing them?ย
I made these today and followed the recipe exactly with the ingredients. I did mix both the chocolate covered sunflower seeds and mini chips in with the oats, so I didnt have to press them in after. Worked perfectly! These are super addicting!
Thanks for a great recipe.
You are welcome!
Taste so good! Do you know how many calories it is per bar for this recipe?
I couldnโt find the sunflower seeds in Canada but I put mini chocolate chips all over the pan before I add the oatmeal mixture. They melt but make a nice chocolate coating. I may press some mini chocolate chips on top too! My teenage kids, husband and I love them! I always double the recipe and put them in a 9×13 pan. The texture is so nice! I tried adding some coconut today too!
These were great! Can you exclude the brown sugar?
Tasty and easy to make! Just wish they weren’t so soft. Has anyone tried baking these?