Peanut Butter Protein Oat Bars [Recipe]

In case you didn’t know already, I’m somewhat of a peanut butter addict. I also love my morning bowl of Umpqua oats to get my day off to a great start. If you haven’t tried my

Chunky Monkey Protein Oatmeal go take a peek! It’s a super delicious healthy treat that’s guaranteed to make you feel warm & fuzzy on the inside. As quick and easy as my morning oatmeal can be, I don’t always have those 5 minutes spare and some mornings I’m not always that hungry. So it’s great to have something else on hand that ties me over for the morning and that I can just grab and wrap to go! That’s why these Peanut Butter Oat Bars are the bomb!

Let’s set something straight right off the bat. I’ve called these sensational snacks “oat bars” to try to avoid any confusion, but back in my homeland (that’s England by the way, where the English language came from ;-)) we would actually call these flapjacks. Now Jason tells me that Stateside the term flapjacks is exclusively used to mean pancakes – is this true?! Anyway, so I thought I’d play it safe with the name oat bars! Now I think about it though, I’m pretty sure you could make yourself some American-style flapjacks with the exact same ingredients. Let me know if you give it a go!

The original recipe called for quick cooking oats but I wanted to use what I had on hand. My pantry is well-stocked with the super tasty Umpqua Oats Maple Pecan oatmeal. Given that they’re already flavored I figured I could reduce the amount of additional sweetener I used in this recipe. Instead of 1/4 cup of honey that was suggested, I used just 2 tbsp which definitely helped to make these bars a little more macro friendly. I would probably even try leaving out the honey altogether next time as these bars came out sweet as pie and not at all crumbly.

I actually prefer a little more crunch to my oat bars so I’d even try tinkering around with a little less milk next time or leaving my mixture to bake for a wee bit longer than 25 minutes. One thing I wouldn’t compromise on though is the peanut butter! You definitely don’t want to skimp on this. PB is the glue that holds my life together 🙂 It’s also the glue that makes these oat bars hold their form and satisfy your hunger!

When it comes to nut butters my absolute favorite brand is Betsy’s Best. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t budget some of my fat macros for a couple tablespoons of BB’s gourmet peanut butter. But I was running low on supplies so on this occasion I substituted with some equally delicious cashew butter. I was NOT disappointed.

Of course, if you do need to skimp a little to make these oat bars more macro-friendly, then you might like to try using a peanut butter powder instead, like Chike. I used Chike for the optional topping in this recipe but you could definitely use it as a replacement for the nut butter mixed in with the oatmeal. Let me know how it turns out if you do!