Home Recipes Bars Granola Bars
Julia K. PorterUpdated: Feb. 20, 2024
I'm always impressed with working moms who make nutritious snacks for their kids. I love Jennifer Garner, and when I heard about her granola bars, I had to check them out!
Jennifer Garner is hardworking mama, but still makes time to post her Pretend Cooking Show on Facebook and share some of her delish recipes with us. I also want to be an awesome mom who can juggle work, school drop-off and domestic bliss in the kitchen.
With a preschooler in the house, my husband and I are often juggling work and life and taking snacks on the go, so trying Jennifer’s granola bar recipe was a no-brainer.
How to Make Jennifer Garner’s Granola Bars
Shutterstock/Chelsea Lauren&Ivory27
Though a naysayer told me it would be cheaper to buy granola bars at the store, I scored all of the ingredients at Aldi—and I picked up enough for several batches! (Check out the 12 things you should only buy at Aldi.)
Ingredients
- 2 cups oats
- 1 cup unsweetened coconut
- 1/2 cup wheat germ
- 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
- 1/4 cup ground flaxseed
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla
Getting started
The only change I made to the recipe was to add chocolate chips. I contemplated adding nuts, but in retrospect, I’m glad I stuck to my plan. (We are chocolate junkies in my house and I thought this was good alternative for the chocolate chip cookies my daughter has me make every week!)
Following the directions Jennifer shared on Facebook, I preheated my oven to 300ºF. Then I combined the dry ingredients up through the flaxseed all together in a large bowl. I set that aside, and in a saucepan, I melted the butter, honey, brown sugar, salt and vanilla. Next up—I mixed all the ingredients together, lined a 9×9 pan with parchment paper and packed everything in there.
Baking the bars
I put the pan in the oven for 10 minutes, then took it out, packed the bars down again and baked for another 10 minutes. Yum! Just let ’em cool and they’re ready. You can melt some chocolate with a spoonful of coconut oil or Crisco over a double boiler and drizzle that over the bars, too.
See our expert tips on melting chocolate.
Here’s what I thought
I followed the recipe exactly, but the outside bars didn’t hold as well as I had hoped. (I’m pretty sure I just didn’t pack them tight enough.) However, this “failure” has proven to be one of my greatest kitchen triumphs because…the granola is AMAZING mixed with yogurt or homemade vanilla ice cream. The inside pieces are perfectly packed and I’m not ashamed to say that I’m enjoying one of my granola bars while I type this!
Honestly, this is the best granola I’ve ever tasted and I plan to keep making it moving forward as granola for my yogurt and in bars for my family. A big thank you to Jennifer Garner for passing this recipe on!
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Originally Published: November 08, 2018
Julia K. Porter
Dr. Julia Porter began her career as a high school English teacher in Brooklyn, NY and has taught college courses since 2008. Her personal interests include reading, writing, traveling and experiencing new cultures. She lives in Indiana with her husband, daughter and a rambunctious Australian Shepherd.
