You know those nut bars that Costco sells? They’re really good and fairly cheap compared to some others. They are made with three types of nuts (almonds, cashews and walnuts), not just one and aren’t that sweet that you couldn’t eat them, which is a problem with some of the brand ones on the market.
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Nut bars can contain excessively much sugar sometimes, with producers adding glucose syrup and honey in addition to actual sugar in high amounts.
Many prefer Kirkland Signature Nut Bars to brand nut bars because they taste great and are made with good ingredients.
Here’s what people appreciate about them:
- Contain lots of nuts, so have a good amount of protein.
- Are healthier than candy bars while still being delicious.
- Are a great afternoon snack and good to take on road trips.
- Also, they’re great for when needing to balance blood sugar levels.
- They’re crunchy, so perfect for you if you like crunchiness.
- They contain dark chocolate to satisfy a craving.
- They are low in sugar, containing just the right amount of sweetness.
- They’re peanuts free, which is a plus for people who don’t enjoy them.
Ingredients in Kirkland Nut Bars: almonds, dark chocolate flavored coating (chicory root inulin, sugar, palm kernel oil, cocoa powder (processed with alkali), soy lecithin, salt, vanilla extract), chicory root extract, cashews, sunflower kernels, honey, walnuts, rice syrup, crisp rice (rice flour, sugar, calcium carbonate, salt), sea salt, soy lecithin.
Now, if you prefer nut bars with a smaller list of ingredients, homemade is the solution.
In fact, replicating these delicious snack bars at home is a great idea because you can make so many varieties of them. You can even make nut bars entirely sugar-free.
Simple homemade no sugar nut bars
What substitutes sugar in sugar-free nut bars are dates. Dates are a natural sweetener that will hold everything together nicely, but you can also add honey, maple syrup or agave for extra sweetness and firmness.
If you want, you can toast the ingredients and that way, the bars will last even longer in the freezer, not that anyone can resist them that long.
You will need to use a food processor to chop the nuts and the dates into smaller pieces. It’s much easier to use a processor for chopping dates rather than chopping them by hand because they’re so sticky.
When you add them in with the nuts, they will chop so much easier.
So what you do is you mix 1 cup of dates with 2 cups pecans, 1 cup walnuts, 1 cup almonds and process everything together in the food processor.
You can also add some peanut butter to the mix, vanilla extract, cinnamon, chocolate chips or other dried fruit if you like.
That’s what so great when making these snack bars at home, that you can add and subtract ingredients as per what you like.
You can make them vegan with not using honey. You can use gluten-free oats if you want to add oats. Etc.
Some people bake the mixture, but for this recipe, it’s not really necessary, especially if you toast the nuts.
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With every snack bar such as this, you’ll get a load of vitamins, healthy fat and will stay full for hours.