Homemde Larabar Bites

One of my recent snacking discoveries has been the Larabar, a healthier alternative to all those snack bars on the store shelves. The Larabar has the tagline of being “the original fruit and nut bar” and is made with minimal ingredients. If you read their ingredient labels you’ll find that to be quite true as most of them are only made with fruits and nuts and include no sugar at all.

One of my favorite flavors is the Chocolate Coconut Chew. If you take a quick look at the ingredient list on that wrapper you’ll find it says, “Dates, Almonds, Walnuts, Unsweetened Cocoa Powder, Unsweetened Coconut.” Indeed, a minimal list of healthy and recognizable ingredients. And of course whenever I see a list of very familiar ingredients like that I start thinking, hey, maybe I can just make my own!

So I began fiddling around and now have my own homemade Larabar recipe that I like to make too. I did find, however, that when my homemade mixture was soft enough for me to find enjoyable, it was too soft to stay molded into bars. My super-duper clever solution was to just not make them into bars! Instead I just roll mine into balls that I call my Homemade Larabar Bites because they’re a perfect little bite-sized version.

How To Make Homemade Larabar Bites

To make this copycat version of the Chocolate Coconut Chew Larabar, we’ll begin with dates and nuts. I always use the larger Medjool dates that already have the pits removed. I buy them in a 12 oz package and use half of the package for this recipe. Sometimes the dates are very large, and other times they are a bit smaller so it’s hard to say exactly how many dates to use. I find that half of a 12 oz package of dates also equals about a cup of dates (that are slightly packed down into the measuring cup). For my most recent batch, I used 10 medjool dates. I also soak the dates in warm water for about 15 minutes before using them in the recipe to soften them up for using in the food processor.

I use ¾ of a cup of nuts in the recipe too and do a mixture of almonds and walnuts. I try to use about half of each type but I don’t worry about too exact. As long as I end up with ¾ cup, using some of both, I call it good. I add cocoa powder and unsweetened coconut flakes to my mixture too.

To get everything mixed together you’ll need a food processor. I put the nuts in first and process them until they are coarse crumbs. Next I add in the dates and process some more until things start coming together. Then I add in the cocoa powder and process some more, and then finally pulse in the coconut. The mixture is now ready to go!

I transfer the mixture to a small bowl, and begin rolling them into balls. If at this point you find things aren’t holding together, you can always add a tablespoon or two of water to make the mixture more moist. I make my balls about 1″ in size, and usually get about 20 balls per batch.

Update: I think the chocolate chew flavor referenced when this post was first written is now discontinued with other new flavors of Larabars introduced. But this copycat Larabar idea is still tasty and a great way to have a sweet snack using dates instead of sugar.