I’m totally late to the no-bake game for sure. No excuse, just a mental recipe block for me! But, I’ve been really wanting to start making something like this on my own, since Larabars don’t exactly grow on trees. Then again neither do food processors. Luckily my mom was kind enough to gift me a good one last year. Generous moms do not grow on trees either, and yes, I could go on 😉
Internet recipes don’t grow on trees either (oops I really did go on), unless your tree is an Apple Inc. tree (haha!) with decent wifi. For all I know, such a thing already exists because seriously, what the heck do I know about technology?
Anyway, if you have a food processor these are incredibly easy to make. They might be even better if you also happen to enjoy cleaning your food processor after you use it. Did that make any sense? Yes. I don’t particularly like cleaning my food processor, so I’d say that was the one down side to this recipe, but you just can’t have it all. Nope, what goes up must come down and what goes in the food processor WILL leave something behind for you to clean out. Life lesson #37,456.
No Bake Fruit, Nut and Chocolate Chip Squares
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups shelled raw pecan halves
- 3/4 cup raw almonds
- 2 and 1/2 cups pitted dates
- 1/4 cup virgin coconut oil - solid
- 1/2 cup Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips - or preferred brand of mini chocolate chips
Instructions
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Prepare an 8 x 8 inch baking dish by lightly coating with coconut oil.
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Make sure your dates are soft enough not to kill your food processor! I had to learn this the hard way. If they are a bit hard you can soften them by microwaving with a little water, then draining.
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Put your pecans, almonds, and dates in your food processor and process on high until you get a crumbly pasty mixture. Then add the coconut oil and pulse until fully combined and the mixture is getting cohesive.
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Stir the chocolate chips in to evenly distribute, then transfer the mixture into the baking dish.
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Cover with wax paper to help press down firmly enough to get the mixture to stick together. Refrigerate about 15-30 minutes to firm up, before using a plastic knife to cut into squares. Store covered in the refrigerator.
Good stuff, I’m telling you! Very simple, and you can substitute other dried fruits if dates aren’t your thing. Or try mixing and matching if you like variety, I don’t think you can really go wrong here.
Have a happy, happy Friday (and let’s pretend it’s not snowing on the first day of freaking spring!) Yeah let’s just not talk about that at all.
What kind of tree would you grow if it could be anything at all? For me right now, anything but snow. Oops…
Do you have a food processor? How often do you use it?
I can’t imagine life without my food processor! It’s one of my most used kitchen appliances.
Your recipe looks delicious and I love love the ease of no bake.
I need to do more no bake!
Let’s not even discuss today’s snow or the fact that it looks like the schools will close early! These bars look delish!
My kids had a half day but they really could have stayed. It’s sticking but the roads aren’t bad. So done with this though!
I love my food processor, but I can’t find the blade for my mini one (that also is a blender) so I end up making fewer food processor recipes than I would like to. i seriously have no clue where the damn thing went.
I have also misplaced parts, but luckily have always managed to find them! I’m sure it’ll turn up 🙂
Haha unless you have an apple tree! That’s funny!!! I’m loving no bake too lately. I have several recipes lined up. Love this one! Pecans arenot used enough!
Thanks for laughing at my cheesy joke 😉 Looking forward to some of your no bakes too! I love pecans, although I do forget to use them aside from holidays.
I love my food processor but I hate cleaning it so I use my vitamix instead most of the time. I need to start making my own bars instead of always relying on packaged ones! I will definitely need to give this recipe a try!
The cleaning is really annoying, wish it somehow didn’t have so many parts! Everyone seems to have a vitamix!
Yum!! Thanks for sharing, these look delicious. I’m a Larabar addict and I think these will be a less expensive addiction!
Larabars are great, I agree!
Ok I would totally grow a magnolia tree and then if i can get 1 more, a lemon tree. i love magnolias! they smell gorgeous and are beautiful, and then the lemons well who doesn’t love lemons?
this is remindind me of how my life has changed dramatically in the last couple of years…. the food processor is a symbol of my life pre-marriage. i used to spend my weekends making pesto and salsa and anything you can imagine that was green and could go in a mason jar. the food processor and mason jar sauces were my life. i would eat these green concoctions with all my food during the week, so regimented. so delusional. LOL.
i have only used my food processor 3 times in 11 months… this recipe might actually inspire me to make it 4 🙂
happy happy friday lady!!! thanks for another inspiration 🙂
I go through phases with it, but for pesto it’s obviously pretty awesome! I’d love to try some of your sauce recipes 🙂
wow really? i always thought my sauces were weird but i loved them, they were a version of pesto but spiced, and went on everything! here is what i usually did…
i’d throw the following things into a large food processor or blender, nothing fancy but if you got fancy then that’s cool too:
a bunch of cilantro
a bunch of parsley or mint, or 1/2 and 1/2
a bunch of another herb like basil, or more of whatever
a bunch of green leaves, like spinach or kale
a cup of soaked seeds, like pumpkin
a small sprinkle of sunflower seeds
a few other nut, like pine nuts or macadamia or almonds or walnuts
juice from the fermended veggies, or ACV
some lemon or lime juice
sea salt for taste
some curry powder
turmeric powder, like a tsp or more
pinch of cayenne, just a speck!
enough good olive oil to make it pesto-like
then turn that thing on, sometimes i’d have to add stuff in batches. honestly it sounds like a lot but it’s just yummy.. at least to me. and it freezes well. so much yummy nutrition.
okay don’t worry, i know it’s a lot! i just start off with basically greens, herbs, some seeds/nuts, some citrus or acid, then good oil. everything else is whatever you like. oh, and some garlic. that’s always good 🙂
p.s. i will find a way to put turmeric in anything, lol
Sounds like you have some amazing recipes! I’ve always meant to make sauces to freeze ahead of time. Pesto is so delicious 🙂
These sound fabulous! I don’t have an actual food processor, but an attachment for my vitamix so that’s how I get it done. I DO hate the clean up, though!
Sad that the cleanup factor influences what we make! Or at least me anyway 🙂
I haven’t really gotten on the no-bake thing myself either! But it would be so great if I really did do it all the time…..bars are expensive!
They are, I need to start experimenting! I’m sure you could do some great no bake snacks 🙂
Def trying this. We have a vita mix and use it daily
Cool, hope you like it 🙂
my food processor has died 2x! so yes, i will try these in my vitamix. no prob, right? Happy to lick clean
Everyone has a vitamix! I don’t have one but assuming it’s fine? For such a fancy gadget you would think the food processor would be more sturdy!
These look amazing!!! Can’t wait to make. I have an 11 cup food processor–make all my nut butters in it–and yes it’s a pain to clean but I have it down to a science! I also use a vitamix for smoothies/soups etc–I think that it would be really hard to get the “bar” mixture out of the bottom!
That’s awesome that you make nut butters! I’d love to do that. I agree this comes out pretty sticky so not sure about the vitamix. I probably need a cleaning lesson from you 🙂
New reader alert! I discovered your blog searching IBS related symptoms and am a little confused right now! I thought all the Larabars I was eating (main ingredients are dates, a high FODMAP food) was a huge culprit / trigger food for my symptoms and was planning to eliminate them from my diet… but then stumbled across this recipe. Do you not react to dates? Thanks in advance!
I would say if you are having active symptoms to stay away from dried fruit, dates included. I’m at the point where I can usually handle maybe one higher FODMAP food per day (not always, sometimes it’s unpredictable) and I will eat larabars a couple of times per week. Often I will notice gassiness as a result but not usually painful symptoms.
I think everyone eventually realizes what they can and can’t tolerate for the most part, and for me I can tolerate some higher FODMAP foods in moderation but others it seems like I need to avoid entirely, like raw onions, cauliflower, mushrooms, dairy containing lactose, and sadly raw apples and pears (my favorite!) Others seem to be okay some days (cooked apples, pears, onions) and not others. If I ate too many dates or any dried fruit, I would surely pay the price though! My recipes are a mix, they are all paleo but some do contain higher FODMAP foods, since I cook for my whole family and I’m the only one with the issue. Hope that helps a bit, I know it can be really confusing!
Thanks for your prompt & detailed response, I really appreciate it! If you noticed a lot of blog traffic today… 🙂
Of course! Hope you’re enjoying reading, and thank you 🙂