Healthy Chocolate Hazelnut Bar Recipe
These healthy chocolate hazelnut bars with sea salt are perfect for fueling a workout, or to enjoy as a sweet treat! Making these bars can be a fun and easy activity to do with your kids while helping you save money by not having to buy expensive store-bought bars!
Spend a ton of money each week on snack bars? Same! Bars are such an easy grab-and-go snack, but they are pretty stupidly expensive. I do love a good Lara bar, but to save money after starting my practice, I began to make my own. Cheap, easy, and a whole lot tastier than anything you can find at the store! With this chocolate hazelnut bar recipe, I think I outdid myself!
The ingredients in this chocolate hazelnut bar recipe are budget friendly and packed with wholesome ingredients, yet tastes almost dessert-like thanks to sticky sweet, caramel-like dates. With chia seeds for a boost of omega-3 fats, toasty hazelnuts, and rich cocoa powder, these bars pack some serious nutrient-power, yet tastes basically like nutella in snack bar form. It’s perfect for when you have a sweet craving but want something that provides some major satisfaction factor.
The chia seeds are the secret ingredient in these chocolate hazelnut chia bars. Mixed with water, they form a gel that helps hold everything together. The dates are the other ingredient that provides “stickiness” that holds these into bars.
How to Make Healthy Chocolate Hazelnut Bars
The one thing you’ll need to make these chocolate hazelnut bars is a really good food processor! Dates are pretty sticky and thick, so it’ll take some time to blend together. Start by pulsing the hazelnuts, which helps everything blend together. Then add the rest of the ingredients and blend until combined, stopping many, many times to scrape down the sides.
To make the bars, press them into a parchment paper lined bread loaf pan. The instructions detail how to wrap the bars up so your fingers don’t get sticky while flattening them into bars. To make it easier to cut into bars, I like to freeze them for a little bit first.
Healthy Chocolate Hazelnut Bar Storage Tips
I like to keep these chocolate hazelnut bars stored in the refrigerator in a reusable container, with a layer of parchment paper between each layer so they don’t stick together. Technically, they’re good for 7 days in the fridge, but honestly, I think they’re probably fine up to a month.
Alternately, if you’d like to freeze the bars - a great idea if you double up the batch - they’ll last a pretty long time in the freezer! Just pull them out and let them defrost before eating, either on the counter or in the fridge.
This recipe for healthy chocolate hazelnut bars has been updated to give you the best possible content.
If you like this chocolate hazelnut bar recipe, follow my favorite snacks Pinterest board for more inspiration!
Healthy Chocolate Hazelnut Bar Recipe
Makes 12 bars
Ingredients
1.5 cups toasted hazelnuts
1 cup packed, pitted dates
1/4 cup chia seeds
6 Tablespoons cocoa powder
A few tablespoons of water, as needed
Flaky sea salt
Directions
Place hazelnuts in the food processor and pulse until roughly chopped.
Add dates, chia seeds and cocoa powder and blend until finely chopped and well combined with a sticky texture, adding a bit of water tablespoon at a time, if needed to help it blend. You will likely have to stop multiple times while blending to scrape down sides and mix, as the sticky, thick mixture tends to get stuck.
Line a bread loaf pan with parchment paper. Scoop the mixture into the dish over the parchment paper. Fold the sides over the hazelnut-date mixture and flatten (I used a container of broth, which fit perfectly into the dish. This will help flatten the bars without turning your hands into a sticky mess.
Freeze the bars wrapped in the parchment paper for 15-30 minutes to make cutting easier.
When firm, remove the bars from the freezer, unwrap, and sprinkle with sea salt. Slice into 10 bars. Store in a covered container in the fridge for up to a few weeks, or in the freezer if you’d like to keep them longer.
If you like this chocolate hazelnut bar recipe, you might also like:
PB&J Bars
Homemade Fig Bars
Flourless Peanut Butter Loaf Cake
