A Nature Valley Copycat recipe. Soft-baked oatmeal squares made with natural ingredients – no butter or oil included! These bars are peanut butter flavored and bursting with peanut butter chips along with a peanut butter drizzle on top.
I have been working on this recipe for ages.
Seriously, it has taken me about 98,463 failed attempts, and at least 3,234 extra large jars of peanut butter.
Minus the scoops of peanut butter I was eating from those jars, about 2,672 jars of peanut butter for the recipe experimentation on these bars.
I really, really like peanut butter.
And these bars have been a long time in the coming, but they are honestly the best of the best. They have no added oils, no butter, no eggs, and very little sugar.
They taste even better than the Nature Valley oatmeal squares I was trying to replicate. Which, by the way, have a lot more sugar and random ingredients than these do.
By making these, you’ll know exactly what is in them. And don’t have all the bad-for-you nasty preservatives and words you can’t pronounce. Or at least words I can’t pronounce.
These bars are the perfect on-the-go breakfast or snack that will leave you full for quite some time thanks to all the protein and whole grains.
The base of these bars is (obviously) oats. Old fashioned oats and then oat flour. But don’t freak out if you can’t find oat flour, because you can make it in about 30 seconds. I just grind up oats in my blender or food processor until the oats resemble flour. It’s super quick. The only thing is make sure to measure the oat flour AFTER grinding them and not before!
And other than that, these bars are pretty quick and easy. Oh, and did I mention delicious?!
- 1 cup old fashioned oats
- 1/2 cup oat flour *
- 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter + 1/4 cup for top drizzle
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp. honey
- 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk, or sub another milk
- 1 cup Reese's peanut butter chips
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
- Line an 8 x 8 pan with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a medium sized bowl, combine the oats, oat flour, white whole wheat flour, baking soda, salt and brown sugar. Stir to combine,
- In another medium sized bowl, combine 1 cup peanut butter, vanilla extract, and honey.
- Microwave for about 15 seconds, Remove and stir to combine. Return to the microwave for 25 more seconds. Stir until completely combined
- Add the peanut butter mixture to the dry ingredients and stir well.
- Add in the milk and peanut butter chips. Stir until completely combined
- Press into the lined tray
- Bake for 18-20 minutes or until lightly browned on the edges.
- Remove and let cool completely before removing and cutting into 12 squares.
- Once they are cut into squares, place 1/4 cup of peanut butter in a small resealable bag.
- Cut off the tip of the bag and pipe the peanut butter on the top of the bars.
- Sometimes these bars can be a bit crumbly and you may want to refrigerate them.
Want more Oats?
Peanut Butter Cup Overnight Oats
No Bake Healthy Breakfast Cookies
Dark Chocolate Fudgy Granola Bars
These look awesome Chelsea! I’m such a sucker for anything with oatmeal and peanut butter and soft-baked makes them even better:)
Thank you Kelly! 🙂
So that’s where all of our peanut butter went…
Hmmmm….. You weren’t supposed to read this….
Chelsea, these look and sound perfect! I’m always trying to find the “perfect” granola bar recipe — it takes work, because I’m very serious about granola bars! Pinning these to try!
These look amazing, adding to my list of recipes to try!
OMG AHMAZING!! I love those Nature Valley bars so this copy cat version looks SO TASTY!!
You are so sweet thanks Kayle!
Pinning! Must try these! They look so so good!
Thanks Nicole and thanks for the pin!
VICTORY!!!!! Congrats on nailing the recipe. These look amazing!
Thank you Erin! 🙂
I’m a peanut butter addict too and these bars look nice, sweet and gooey!
I love them! Thank you!
I really love peanut butter too!!! And these look like a peanut butter lovers dream bar! Thank you for perfecting the recipe b/c they look seriously perfect and so delicious! Pinning and can’t wait to make these soon!
Thanks lady! 🙂
I feel like I’ve pinned every last recipe you shared! need to get to work! I think it’s best to have a jar of peanut butter for baking and for eating! these are right up my alley. I love how there is very little sugar. my kiddo and I would eat these up!!
These look amazing. Pinning!
Oh my gosh! I actually love those soft baked oatmeal squares and I eat them at work. The cinnamon version is always sold out at my store, so I’m usually buying the PB ones. I cannot wait to try out your version that I know will be even better. Pinned!
Chelsea, these look so perfect. Glad you were persistent even though it took a few tries to get them just how you wanted them. Can’t wait to make them!
Thank you so much Julie!
These looks fantastic! Pinning!
Thanks for the pin Anna! 🙂
These look amazing, checking them out from freedom fridays and I pinned this! I also really, really love peanut butter, so these are perfect! 🙂
Cathy
Thank you so much Cathy! 🙂 PB is the best!
Congrats on this awesome recipe, Chelsea!! I seriously eat nature valley oatmeal squares ALL THE TIME, but I will be making these bars this weekend because they look WAY better and I love that I can pronounce all the ingredients in them! Pinned : )
Omg I have them almost every day haha, they are so good! thanks Jenn and thanks for pinning 🙂
These look amazingly scrumptious! So glad you finally nailed the recipe – I know how great that feels :). I can’t even tell you how excited I would be to have these for breakfast – can’t think of a better way to start the day!
Thank you Kathi! 🙂
Okay, you’ve convinced me. I am going to make these and I’m sure they’ll be delicious. I like the Nature Valley ones, I’ve only tried the brown sugar oat ones but I would love to make them from scratch without all the preservatives. Thanks Chelsea! By the way, they look so delicious!
Thank you so much Jessica! Oh gosh the brown sugar ones are so good! Now I need to recreate those 🙂
Yum, these look delicious! I love finding a good gluten free granola square/bar recipe!
They are my new go-to bar! Thanks Kelly 🙂
I haven’t had a nature valley bar in soooo long … I used to eat them all the time though!! I love that you made this recipe! So many good ingredients in here … and I can never ever ever turn down peanut butter : ) Happy friday friend!
I am obsessed with them. I think I have them almost daily haha! Thank you Ashley! 🙂
great ingredients. they sound delish!
Thanks Dina!
These look 122000 times better than any nature valley bar! And I love that they’re soft and packed with penut butter flavor – I’ll take a dozen, please!
I hope you enjoy your weekend!
xxx
Thanks Consuelo! 🙂 You enjoy it as well 🙂
I’m a gigantic pb fan too! I can never get enough! Plus, I love those nature valley peanut butter and oats bars! These look great.
Isn’t PB the best?! Thank you Lynna!
Holy cow, Chelsea. I’m drooling. These look absolutely amazing. Need. One. Now. 🙂 Pinned! Hope you’re having a great weekend! <3
Thanks for the pin Erin! I hope you are having a great weekend 🙂
Healthy and easy to prepare!Great snack!Coming from Weekend re-Treat Link Party ! Come-by and visit my blog!
These look wonderful! So glad you kept at it so you could share this one with us!
These look amazing. I don’t have the peanut butter chips in them. I wonder if I should make them with chocolate chips or without any chips to at least try the recipe tonight 🙂 They look so tasty!!!
I bet chocolate chips would be awesome with these!
Just stumbled across this recipe a few days ago. The recipe floated around my kitchen counter for awhile but I just made them for the first time today.
…wow…
Really good.
P.S. Substitute with the chocolate chips, honey, you won’t be sorry. Life’s problems just disappeared! Amazing stuff, that chocolate.
Oh I’m so thrilled you loved these Amy! Thank you! And you are right, life’s problems do seem so much better with chocolate 🙂
These look fabulous. I love that they aren’t full of preservatives. Thanks for sharing at Simple Supper Tuesday.
This looks ..perfect! The texture looks amazing and so good!
Oh these look scrumptious!!! Just stopping by from Two Cup Tuesday. Blessings, Catherine
Hi Chelsea! I found your recipe on Pinterest, and because I am a peanut butter fanatic, I was so excited to try it. I’m an expat living overseas, and it isn’t always easy finding specific ingredients, so I had to modify the recipe a little, but it didn’t matter because they turned out great! I used regular whole wheat flour instead of the white whole wheat, subbed dark chocolate chunks for the peanut butter chips, used coconut palm sugar I purchased on a recent trip to Thailand in place of the brown sugar, and added some ground flax seed. They were not overly sweet, which I actually prefer. I am guessing the peanut butter chips probably add more sweetness than dark chocolate. These will make a great pre-workout snack for me, and my husband who usually turns his nose up at anything that looks remotely healthy enjoyed them as well. Thanks so much for sharing your recipe!
This is SO good to hear Kristy! Thank you so much for taking the time to comment and letting readers know the great changes you made! Thanks again and have a wonderful weekend 🙂
Oh my gosh thank you. I never thought a recipe would actually come up when I googled it! After buying another too-expensive box, I need this recipe. Pinned, hopefully making this week!
What a delightful surprise to Google NV Copycat Soft Oatmeal Squares and find your recipe. Looks simple enough, however I am seeking the Cinnamon version of these soft squares. Any chance on modifying the recipe to omit peanut butter?
Thank you, Chelsea, for your forthcoming response.
D.
Thanks Deneen! I haven’t tried any versions without peanut butter so I’m not quite sure what to recommend! I’d love to experiment and work out a recipe that copycats the cinnamon one. I will work on a recipe this week and keep you updated! Thanks for your comment!
Hey Deneen, I just wanted to let you know, thanks to your comment I’ve been busy working on a new recipe! Here is a cinnamon and brown sugar copycat: http://chelseasmessyapron.com/nature-valley-copycat-cinnamon-brown-sugar-soft-baked-oatmeal-squares/
Enjoy!
I just made this recipe, and it performed amazingly in nearly all aspects! The only thing I didn’t like was that it had a tendency of sticking to the roof of my mouth as I chewed it, but that’s an unimportant aspect.
My family and I have been wondering if the number of failed trials was what you actually had to go through to create this recipe (I think it is because you said ‘seriously’ and because of the specificity of the number of trials and peanut butter jars, but my family says you could be exaggerating).
I’m going to replace the peanut butter chips with dark chocolate chips the next time I make this recipe to see how it compares. Thanks for creating and sharing this recipe; I love replacing foods my family buys with homemade alternatives :).
Oh that is so good to hear! Thank you for taking the time to comment and leave a review 🙂
Haha!!! I am definitely an exaggerater 🙂 I probably had in reality about 6-8 fails before I was happy with the bars! I’d love to hear how it is with the dark chocolate chips – that sounds fantastic and is definitely healthier than peanut butter chips. Thanks again for your comment Sam!
These are great! Made the first batch exactly like the recipe and they came out great. next batch I changes one tbsp of brown sugar for one tbsp of jam (used plum jam but i think any jam will work well. 1/4 cup = 4 tbsp).
Thanks!
OOO that sounds delicious!!! 🙂
Omg!They looks so good!!!!!I am craving now!
Thanks for sharing !
any ideas on how to make the cinnamon brown sugar ones? We’re not huge peanut butter fans, but LOVE the other ones.
I actually have a copycat recipe for those too! Here’s the link: http://chelseasmessyapron.com/nature-valley-copycat-cinnamon-brown-sugar-soft-baked-oatmeal-squares/
Hello Chelsea! While searching for a copycat recipe of the Nature Valley oatmeal squares, I stumbled upon your blog and I’m impressed with everything I’ve viewed, like your homemade cookie dough bites for the cereal and the no bake cookies. I’m definitely going to make this recipe. I’m preparing myself for it, I just grinded up oats in my sister’s magic bullet and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I just made oat flour! I didn’t think I could grind up oats in the magic bullet,since the texture is so soft but I did. I bought some silk milk today. It’s a mixture of almond and coconut milk. I’ll be using this for the milk part.Tomorrow morning, I’m going out to buy the rest of the ingredients I don’t have. I’m already in love with your site Chelsea! Thank you for all the recipes. I have a family reunion next weekend and I’m sure I could make a potluck dish. Have a great day!
Hi Ashley!! Thanks so much for your sweet comment – that means a lot to me 🙂 Isn’t making oat flour the coolest thing ever? I love watching them go from oats to flour in seconds!! Thanks again SO much and sorry for the delayed response! I hope you were able to try these and liked them 🙂 Have a good one!
I have been looking for a recipe similar to the Nature Valley forever! So glad I stumbled upon yours! My husband prefers the blueberry bars, do you have any tips on how to substitute the peanut butter for blueberry instead?
These are one of the best tasting “healthy” things I have ever baked! I’ve never actually had the nature valley bars, but I don’t think I need to anymore. I can’t believe there’s only 1/4 cup of sugar in the whole thing! Also, if it’s of interest to anyone, I used regular whole wheat flour and dark chocolate chips and it worked great!!
Yay! I am so glad you tried and liked these!! Thanks for your sweet comment 🙂
Dear Chelse,
I baked a batch of these this morning (actually around 3am) by 9 am they were GONE!!! I am right now busy making 4 more batches for neighbors and myself plus typing up your recipe to give to them.”WARNING” Ladies these are so beyond good that they ought to be illegal cause I could NOT stop eating them.These have got to be by far the “BEST” oatmeal bars (the copy-cat soft ones) EVER!!! A part of me wishes I never found you and your recipe but I can’t help but Thank you and wanna jump through the internet and hug you for sharing this out-of-this-world-GREAT recipe. Lord help I can’t quit eating them they are just that GOOD no no nonot just GOOD……..YUMMY-LISHOUS.
Thank you from the bottom of my southern Texas heart.Now I gotta go find a rehab that will cure an oatmeal bar addiction.
Again Thank for sharing
Dianne M.
San Antonio, TX
I’m soooo excited I found this pin and recipe!! My son eats a NV square every morning and it is my daily dose of guilt. Just kidding, I’m not that dramatic. I had them for me when he was a baby for a quick snack, then it turned into him trying them, then now at 2 years old he eats one while we get ready for work. I’m excited to try this. Mostly for the better ingredients for my son, but also because those squares are pricey and sometimes the quality is weird. Like sometimes they are soft, sometimes they are hard…yuck! Thank you!!
Thank you so much for posting this. These are my absolute favorite bars and this was spot on and DELICIOUS!!! Although i didn’t add the peanut chips and I changed the amount of honey.
Five stars!
Hi Chelsea,
I would love to make these for my daughter for breakfast. She doesn’t feel comfortable eating PB just before school, as many kids at school have allergies. Have you ever tried this with a PB substitute , such as Pea butter or Wow butter?
I would love to hear what you think?
I haven’t ever tried a substitute for peanut butter and one person that did try Wow Butter didn’t have great results, so I’m not sure if I would recommend a substitute for these. I wish I could say for sure if I knew what would work, but I don’t unfortunately.
Do you have a calorie/carb count on this?
Hi! This recipe sounds awesome!! I have a question, besides the fact that they wouldn’t be quite as healthy for me, could I make these using regular flour and not whole wheat flour?? I have everything in the house but the whole wheat flour and really don’t want to make an extra trip to the store just for flour! Thank you!!
Yes that is totally fine! 🙂
Hi Chelsea
So, I love to bake….but I always have problems with the outcome…
I posted earlier that I was going to use Wow Butter instead of peanut butter. (Also used Choc. chips) Aside from that, I followed the recipe to a T. They smelled wonderful. However, they came out so crumbly and dry, they won’t even stay in the squares that I cut, they just fall apart into crumbs 🙁
Everyone said how great they are, so clearly it’s me…I just wish I knew what. ….
Any thoughts?
It may be the Wow butter if you’ve tried everything else; I’m not sure what else could make them crumbly 🙁 I’ve made these many, many times and never had them crumble, but I’ve also always used regular peanut butter, so that’s all I can think that would have changed it? I wish I could be of more help Shelley!!
Made these for my husband who loves the Nature Valley bars. He loved them! Thanks for giving me a recipe to cut out processed ingredients.
Awesome!! That is so great to hear! Thank you for the comment Alicia! 🙂
Hi,
These look so delicious. Do u have any nutritional information for them (like…calories, fiber, protein etc.)?
Thanks!
Hi Robyn! I’m sorry I no longer have nutritional information on my recipes as there is not an online calculator that is 100% correct. I was receiving a lot of angry comments if readers got different counts from different online calorie sources so I don’t want to publish anything that isn’t completely accurate.
I had a holiday in the USA a few weeks ago and I done it on the cheap by shopping in walmart instead of always eating out. I bought the nature valley bars and they are divine. They are my favourite of all the breakfast bars I have ever had. However, we don’t have them here. So I’m so glad i came across this cause I’m going to make this at the weekend. We don’t have peanut butter chips either 🙁 so i might use chocolate chips instead.
I’m so happy you found this recipe then!! I hope you love them 🙂
I live abroad… so unfortunately Nature’s Valley isn’t readily available to me. 🙁 So you can imagine that I was soooo excited when I found this recipe after my box went empty! Made them today and they came out great!! These are totally going to be my crack snack haha. Thanks!!
Didn’t have peanut butter cups so I just added 1/2 cup milk chocolate chopped up and 1/2 cup chunky PB. Worked fine!
Oh yea, and you were right. They ARE crumbly.
I’m thrilled that you enjoyed these! 🙂 Thanks for the comment Caryn!