Do you want to feel like you are on a tropical island away from all the chaos? Once you get a taste of these Coconut Lime Homemade Lara Bars, you will feel like you have stepped into a tropical paradise. Then you will hear the kids screaming and be dragged back into your reality. You are still at home and have a ton of house work to do before your husband get home and thinks you have just been sitting around eating bon bons all day!
Coconut Lime Homemade Lara Bars
I have several allergies I have to cater to in my family. I have Little miss and little face are allergic to all nuts and little face is allergic to chocolate. This makes it extremely tough to buy healthy protein bars they can eat for snacks or breakfast. I am constantly searching for recipes I can modify to make for them. Here is a homemade Lara bar recipe that is nut free, chocolate free, gluten free and also very frugal and very tasty. I wanted something that tasted summery. I am in a lime phase right now so I thought …
Ingredients for Coconut Lime Homemade Lara Bars:
1 cup Prunes (or total of one cup of dried fruit 1/2 prunes or dates and 1/2 dried fruit)
1 Cup SunButter (or Sunflower seeds or you can use any nut)
Zest of one lime
Juice of ½ a Lime
½ cup Coconut (or 1/2 cup additional dried fruit)
¼ cup Oatmeal (1/4 cup of extras like chocolate chips, or cocoa powder)
Extra Oatmeal to sprinkle on top
I think prunes get a bad rap. They are way cheaper than dates. I purchased these for $2.00lb and dates are around $4.00lb. The prunes are very sweet and tasty just like dates. If you don’t like the word prune, just call them dried plums. Get over it!
Directions on how to make homemade Lara Bars:
1. Get your food processor ready. Put in one cup of Sun Flower seeds or Sun Butter in. If you are using seeds, let the processor go for a couple of minutes. You want a mealy consistency.
2. Add the oatmeal and process for one more minute.
3. Leave your processor on and add zest of one lime. This should be about 1 tablespoon of zest. Add lime juice.
4. The processor should still be going and slowly add in the coconut.
5. Add prunes a little at a time. When all prunes are added, process for 1 minute or two on high. Make sure all the prunes have gotten all chopped up.
6. You should end up with a ball of brown stuff in your processor. This is a ball of goodness I assure you.
7. Spray the bottom of a 9X9 in pan and put your yummy prune, coconut, lime ball in there. I suggest spraying your hands with a little oil first. It is really sticky. And press the yummy ball in the bottom of the pan until all is even. I am not going to tell you what they look like if you don’t add the oatmeal on top, but you get the idea. I added the oatmeal for cosmetic purposes. It looks so much better, don’t you think?
8. Place in refrigerator for a couple of hours. Then take out and cut evenly into 8 homemade Lara bars. I cut four across then cut them in half. You can stack them in a container using some plastic wrap or wax paper.
These coconut lime homemade Lara bars are so delicious. I wish we had taste’o vision, so I could give you a sample. Both little face and little miss loved them. If you wanted to, you could roll these up into little balls and roll them in a little oat flour to coat the outside to prevent them from sticking. This is what I was going to do, but I was too tired and didn’t have the energy. You can modify the recipe to include nuts or nut butters and still taste awesome.
Making these Lara bars comes out way cheaper a bar! We had the coconut lime bars for breakfast. These homemade Lara bars stick with you to satisfy the mean hungry monster in the morning. You have to let me know if you try these. Really these taste great!
Also try my homemade baked oatmeal bars for another quick breakfast treat.
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Strawberry Shortcake from Growing Up Gable!
Camille says
Cool! 🙂 Those shortcakes are awesome! And I LOVE homemade lara bars!
Lena at frugalandthankful says
Yum! Interesting recipe. I bet it was delicious!!
Amy says
Lena, these were delicious. I could have eaten the entire pan. I am really into lime right now. I recently bought a lot of Key Lime Yogurt. I don’t think my family is as keen on lime as I am, but they are enjoying all the tasty things I am making them.
Belle says
I really appreciate you sharing this recipe. I love Lara bars, but I’ve bought them about three times cuz they just are too expensive! Also dates are hard to find in my parts and when I do, like you said they cost a lot! I buy prunes all the time, though, and I had never considered using them instead. I love the lime coconut and I assume that it would work great for other nut butters and flavors! Love it, thanks again for linking it, pinned!
Amy says
Thanks so much for Pinning my recipe! Yes it will work with other nut butters. I always substitute any nut butters for Sunbutter or sun flower seeds de to the allergies in my home. You can try as many combinations as you want with this recipe. Just try to keep the ratios the same. I am going to try oatmeal cookie next, using 1/2 raisins and 1/2 Prunes. Enjoy!
Belle says
Raisins? I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. I just thought I guess you have to use dates. Raisins have a stronger flavor, have you tried them in something like this before? They seem perfect for the oatmeal cookie version! Thanks!
Amy says
I have made an oatmeal raisin Lara Bar before. I only used raisins though. I am going to try to use 1/2 Prunes and 1/2 raisins. You can use any dried fruit as long as at least half is either dates or prunes to hold them together. Then I am going to add a teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg. We will see how these turn out. Everyone liked the others!
ang says
these look great – what a great idea!
Cindy (Vegetarian Mamma) says
I love how easy these are! 🙂
Thanks for linking up at our Gluten Free Fridays party! I have tweeted and pinned your entry to our Gluten Free Fridays board on Pinterest! 🙂
Thanks for linking back to the Gluten Free Fridays post!
See you at the link up this week! We are having a special giveaway this week! Its a tote bag filled with some Gluten Free Allergy Friendly goodies!
Cindy from vegetarianmamma.com
Karren Haller says
Your recipe looks great and made at home much better!
Thank you for sharing on #OMHGFF this week! Pinned to share!
Have a great weekend!