A Nature Valley copycat recipe: soft-baked Oatmeal Bars! These peanut butter flavored bars are thick, chewy, and dotted with peanut butter baking chips. These naturally gluten-free bars are made with better-for-you ingredients.
Try our other gluten-free treats: Gluten-Free Pumpkin Cake, Healthy Chocolate Cookies, or Blueberry Oatmeal Bars.
The Best Oatmeal Bars
On a recent road trip, we tried Nature Valley’s® Peanut Butter Oatmeal Squares. The kids and I loved how soft they were, but I didn’t love the ingredients used. So, when we got home, I decided to make my own version of oatmeal bars.
These homemade oatmeal bars are soft and chewy. They taste a lot like peanut butter cookies mixed with oatmeal. I use natural sweetener like honey, plus good ingredients like peanut butter, oats, and oat flour. The peanut butter chips have some sugar, but you can switch them with dark chocolate to make the bars more nutritious.
Oatmeal Bars Ingredients
- Peanut Butter: This provides the main flavor, structure, and is filling due to its protein content.
- Honey: Naturally sweetens the bars and is rich in antioxidants.
- Light Brown Sugar: Adds a bit more sweetness, used minimally (only 1/4 cup).
- Egg: Stabilizes the batter, adds flavor and protein.
- Vanilla Extract: Gives a subtle flavor enhancement.
- Baking Soda: Prevents the bars from being too dense.
- Oats and Oat Flour: These form the base of your oatmeal bars, providing structure and chewiness. You can make oat flour from these same oats.
- Peanut Butter Chips: They add a fun element, but you can replace them with nuts or dark chocolate chips for a healthier option.
Quick Tip
Line the pan with parchment paper and leave an overhang for easy removal. These oatmeal bars stick to the pan and be nearly impossible to pull out without the parchment paper.
How To Make Oatmeal Bars
- Prep: Preheat your oven and line an 8×8-inch baking pan with parchment paper.
- Mix: In a large bowl, combine peanut butter, honey, brown sugar, an egg, vanilla extract, baking soda, salt, old-fashioned oats, and oat flour. Beat until smooth. Then, fold in the peanut butter chips.
- Bake: Pour the batter into the pan and smooth it out. Bake.
- Cut and Serve: Let the oatmeal bars cool in the pan, then cut them into squares.
More Easy Snack Recipes
Oatmeal Bars
Equipment
- Baking pan 8 x 8-inch
- Parchment paper
- Hand mixer
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1/4 cup light brown sugar lightly packed
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup old-fashioned oats
- 1/2 cup oat flour see note 2
- 1 cup peanut butter chips
- 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Line an 8x8-inch pan with parchment paper, leaving an overhang for easy removal, and set aside.
- Combine all the ingredients except the peanut butter chips in a large bowl. Beat with a hand mixer until smooth. Add in the peanut butter chips and fold with a spatula to combine.
- Transfer batter to the prepared pan and smooth into an even layer. Bake for 18–22 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. They may look a bit underdone or gooey in the center, but as long as they don’t jiggle at all, they are done. These bars continue to set up and firm as they cool.
- Remove bars from the oven and let cool completely in the pan. Use the parchment paper overhang to pull out the bars and cut into 12 squares with a sharp knife.
- Optional: (This is for peanut butter fanatics!) Once bars are cut into squares, place 1/4 cup of peanut butter in a small resealable bag. Cut off a tiny corner tip of the bag and pipe the peanut butter on the top of the bars.
Video
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I don’t usually write reviews for recipes, but these are so good I just have to! These are absolutely delicious! The only changes I made was halving the honey and doubling the brown sugar (because I’m a college student and honey is expensive haha), and using all purpose flour instead of oat flour and they still turned out great! I added walnuts, raisins and chocolate chips as well, and they add the perfect texture and taste!! I was looking for an alternative snack to store bought granola bars, and these definitely do the trick!!
I am so thrilled to hear this! Thanks so much for your comment Sydni!
I noticed most of these reviews were from people who didn’t seem to have made the recipe! I did make it, and I really enjoyed it. They are different than the Nature Valley bars, but much more wholesome and still delicious. I baked mine for probably 40 minutes because they continued to look really underdone to me, but they turned out just fine.
I am so thrilled to hear this! Thanks so much Kinsey! 🙂
Hi Chelsea
Can you make thes bars in muffin pan for part of school lunch?
Thank you Corry
Umm… yum! These are so good! They really do taste like the Nature Valley bars! I didn’t have peanut butter chips, and didn’t want to add chocolate to it as I was making these to eat for breakfast so I left them out. Made no other changes. Still amazing!
YAY! So happy to hear this! Thanks so much Heather! 🙂
These are so good!!! I make them on repeat. I’ve been subbing the PB with sun butter so my kids can take them to school. And we use chocolate chips instead of PB. I omit the added brown sugar and just use the honey, and they are plenty sweet. Thanks so much for such a great recipe!
So thrilled to hear this! Thanks so much Cierra! 🙂
Would maple syrup work in place of honey?
I’ve been trying to eat less processed foods, and my daily granola bar (specifically Nature Valley Soft Baked Oatmeal Squares) clearly needed to go. This one hits the spot! I’ve made it three times now and it’s turned out perfectly soft every time. I’ve landed on a couple mods to make it match my taste: reduce the amount of honey by about half, add a bit extra brown sugar and salt, add flaky salt on top, syrup instead of vanilla, skip peanut butter chips and drizzle, bake for 15 minutes. An easy thing to do to reduce the amount of processed foods in my diet!
I am so thrilled to hear this! Thanks so much Jen! 🙂
I stumbled across these looking for a “lactation” cookie or bar recipe post partum (which is mostly just oats in recipes haha). These are so unreal delicious I have probably made 10 times already since June – Beau e my husband and son can’t keep their hands off of them. I sub coconut sugar for brown sugar and dark chocolate chips for PB chips and add a little chia seeds and flax meal to make a little healthier – so so yummy!
I am so thrilled to hear this! Thanks Tosha! 🙂