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Home > Sangre Celestial > Granola and energy bars: Endlessly customizable close cousins
Podcast: Sangre Celestial
Episode:

Granola and energy bars: Endlessly customizable close cousins
Category: Arts
Duration: 00:00:00
Publish Date: 2025-08-21 19:00:00
Description: Did it ever occur to you that trail mix is just loose granola with no oats, and conversely, many energy bars are simply granola with a binder? Granola and energy bars are close cousins. They often start with the same pantry staples such as oats, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, honey or maple syrup, nut butters, coconut, and spices. They diverge in the proportion of the ingredients and the technique used to make them. By the way, I keep saying oats as if that is the only rolled grain suitable for both granola and energy bars. You can find spelt, wheat, rye, quinoa, rice, barley, and buckwheat in rolled flake form too. Granola is a typically loose (with some clumps) baked mixture made usually with oil and a liquid sweetener, baked until crisp and golden. Energy bars are compressed, cohesive, and portable. Often they are no-bake, though some are baked. The binding relies more heavily on nut butter, syrups, or dates to hold their shape. They’re essentially “granola glued together.” They both have a pleasing balance of crunchy and chewy elements. The chew is the pleasure of both granola and energy bars. Both granola and energy bars are endlessly customizable to taste and dietary requirements. I eat granola for breakfast or as an evening snack when I don’t want a big dinner. I most often eat it parfait style, layered with yogurt and maybe a small dollop of jam. Unless I’m mindlessly eating when I’m just sticking my hand in the bag until it’s gone. Energy bars are for eating on the go or for dealing with a hangry moment when you need to blunt your hunger NOW. Let’s start with granola. The texture can vary. Some granola is very loose intentionally. The texture comes from the nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. But many of us prefer granola with clumps. Nothing quite like munching on those craggy, clumpy lumps. There are techniques that will get you that result. Clumpy granola isn’t a cousin, but rather a sibling to energy bars. They are one step closer to “bar” form. Making granola For a masterclass in clumpy granola methods, I turn to The Kitchn , where they put together an extremely detailed explanation of how different techniques give you different character clumps, with photographs. Using beaten egg white is very common in recipes, and lets clump form, but also results in a crispy bite. Claire Saffitz uses beaten egg whites, bran flakes, and wheat germ. Another technique is to lay out your granola ingredients on a sheet pan, cover it with parchment, and lay another sheet pan on top. Held in place with a little pressure, the granola bakes into a thin giant bar that once cooled, you can break apart as you like. But the lowest effort and highest reward takeaway from that article “relies on a very low oven temperature (275°F, which is lower than most granola recipes) and an hour-long bake time, with absolutely no stirring. It produces an evenly cooked batch of granola with crispy, bite-size clumps.” If you’re at the beginning of your granola-making journey, you could start with this simple recipe from Alton Brown, then start customizing until you find your granola dream. If you want to add a bit of savory to your granola instead of salt, use a teaspoon or two of soy sauce added to your liquid ingredients. It helps with browning too. Energy bars take on the character of the ingredients used, so the results are customizable. Credit: Shutterstock. Making energy bars Now for DIY energy or protein bars. They’re easy to make, and you don’t need pea protein powder to get a satisfying result that carries you through a hungry moment in your day. Most pantries already have what you need. Think of protein bars as a form of more solid granola. You can customize the ratios of seeds and nuts you use to grains or other ingredients. First, you have your base, which can include rolled grains (might be toasted), nuts, seeds, and dried fruit (chopped if too large) — with coconut flakes, puffed rice, or protein powder as options. Your binding mix can contain nut butter (peanut, almond, tahini, sunflower), liquid sweetener (honey, maple, brown rice syrup) with flavorings such as spices, vanilla, or a pinch of salt. If you like chocolate, add cocoa nibs. They have no sugar and a wonderful texture. To finish them off, warm the nut butter and chosen sweetener in a saucepan until smooth and pourable. Pour it over the dry mix and stir really well. You might want to use gloved hands for this. Press the mixture into a parchment-lined pan. It helps to cover the mixture with another sheet of parchment so you can really press it all down, then take that top piece of parchment off and chill the mixture until firm, then cut into bars. Store in the fridge for the best texture. Here’s a recipe for that method . I also love this easy recipe for Genevieve Ko’s Energy Bars from New York Times Cooking. She cooks down maple syrup until tacky to hold the savory forward ingredients together. India has a dessert repertoire called “chikki” that is an analog to energy bars. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock. And for an energy bar that lives within a tradition culture, this energy bar from the point of view of Indian cuisine may be my favorite. You make a date paste from simply soaking dates in hot water. Then pureeing holds the mass of ingredients together, which include almonds, cashews, walnuts, pistachios, sesame and pumpkin seeds, and a small amount of oats. Honey is the sweetener, but you may not need it with the date paste. Spice to your preference. Some protein bars use peanut or almond butter to hold everything together. Others use pureed canned beans, which doesn’t sound very appetizing to me. But you can also turn to ratios of various types of ingredients to create your own bars. There’s an infographic at this site that gives you options for each element of the bar, i.e., sweetener, binder, soft dried fruits, stir-ins, and those beans I was talking about.
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