In my quest to design the ideal Homemade Protein Bar recipe as a mid-morning pre-workout snack I discovered something so wonderful that I just have to share.  These homemade protein bars are Gump simple to whip up and they actually taste great.  Give this recipe a shot then mess with it and let me know all the ways you improve on it in the comments below.

Prep 10 min – Cook 20 min – Cool 10 min – Storage 0 min = Total 40 min

Ingredients (amount used to calculate nutrition in parenthesis)

• 3 medium aged bananas (330g used)
• Whole Grain Rolled Oats (Meijer Naturals Quick Oats 97g used)
• Peanut Butter (Jif Creamy 2 tbsp used)
• Whey Protein Powder (Gold Standard 100% Whey 33g – 2.5 servings w/ included scoop used)

Let’s Get Started

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, peel your bananas which should be aged and mashable and toss them in a large bowl.  Mash them up with a large fork.  You don’t need to liquefy it, just try to get all the chunks to bean size or smaller.

Mix in your oats and protein powder followed by your peanut butter.

Check your consistency and balance your ingredients.  If you stick with the proportions above you’re probably in good shape but depending on the age of the bananas you may end up with batter that’s too firm or two runny.  Scoop up a 1-2 tbsp sized portion up with your fork and turn it upside-down, it should run off slowly, if it drips right down add more oats (and maybe some protein power too), if it’s dry and holds firm to your fork either add a little more banana or peanut butter.

Grease a cake pan or glass baking dish (6×9 ideal here) with a cooking spray, pour and level your batch out.  Place it in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes.  Test if it’s done with a toothpick same as you would for brownies, if nothing sticks to the toothpick when you poke it, you’re done.

Once it’s cooled for 10 minutes or so use a plastic knife or spatula to cut them up into desired portions.  For this batch I cut 18 pieces that were 1.5”x2” squared.

You’ll now have something like this:

homemade protein bars

Following is the nutritional value:

homemade-protein-bar-recipe-nutrition

Cost – About $2.00 for the entire batch or less than 12 cents each

homemade protein bar recipe ingredients

Now it is time to experiment and create your own Homemade Protein Bar Recipe

As mentioned above, once you’ve done this once you will immediately want to experiment with them.  Try substituting various ingredients.  For example, I have made batches with smashed raw unsalted almonds in place of the peanut butter as the fat source.  For a batch this size you will want about 180 calories of almonds (about 24 kernels).  You can also add strawberries, blueberries, and other fruits.  Try different flavors of protein powder.  Finally, these don’t have to be protein bars, call them homemade cookies, drop them on a cookie sheet and let the kids snack on them.

yummy-homemade-protein-bar-testing

Let me know what modifications you find work well in the comments below.