Now you can make your OWN delicious Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt KIND Bars at home that are healthier and much tastier with zero baking required!
Ok so truth be told, I am absolutely obsessed with KIND bars!! They’re the perfect little snack to keep in your purse on the run or in your desk while at work, they’re made with all-natural wholesome ingredients and best of all, they’re soooo dang DELICIOUS!! The only thing I hate is that they’re pretty expensive if you want to a buy them in bulk. Well I have the perfect solution, simply make them yourself!
Ingredients You’ll Need
- peanuts, walnuts, almonds – can’t have a Kind bar without an assortment of nuts! I use dry roasted unsalted nuts for this recipe because we’ll be adding a lot more to these to add flavor along with sea salt
- puffed rice cereal – there are several all natural options for this, but good ol’ fashioned rice krispies will do the trick too if that’s all you’ve got on hand!
- flaxseed meal – adds even more nutty flavor with added health benefits!
- brown rice syrup – this is super important to bind everything together (although some readers have said maple syrup works too!)
- honey – adds a natural sweetness without using refined sugar
- vanilla extract – just adds a little something extra to these bars
- dark chocolate chips – the perfect finishing touch
How to Make Homemade KIND Bars
- First thing you’ll do is add a teaspoon of melted coconut oil to a large bowl to get the bowl nice and greasy and also line an 8-inch pan with aluminum foil, making sure you have some extra overhang on the sides (this will make it easy to pull the bars out once they are set!) Then mix together all your nuts, the puffed rice and flaxseed meal together in the greased bowl and set that aside.
- On the stove top, mix together brown rice syrup, honey, vanilla, and sea salt, and bring to a boil. Once is starts to boil, continually whisk everything for 3 to 4 minutes. THIS STEP IS THE MOST IMPORTANT! You want this mixture to boil for a few minutes so that it will thicken up , getting nice and sticky to hold these bars together.
- Once you’ve got the right consistency, immediately pour the syrup mixture overtop of the nut mixture and stir well to combine. Transfer your sticky nut mixture into your 8-inch pan, spreading it out evenly and making sure there are no gaps. Feel free to get your hands a little damp and press down on the nut mixture so that the bars will set nicely or you can use the back of spoon!
- You’ll want to let the bars cool completely before cutting them (about 30 minutes) so that they are completely set and won’t fall apart when cutting them.
- To make the chocolate drizzle, simply place the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring each time until all the chocolate is melted. Then just drizzle over the bars once you’ve cut them (you should get about 10 bars) and let the chocolate set. And that’s it!
There are so many different combinations of Kind bars you can make too, but my absolute favorite are these dark chocolate and sea salt bars (hmm I wonder why??) So if you love these as much as I do then I urge you to make these bars ASAP! They’re healthy, easy to grab on-the-go and made with all-natural wholesome ingredients.
The great thing about making these is there is no baking involved so this makes the process super quick and easy. You can also customize this recipe however you’d like! I chose to make my favorite Kind bar which is the dark chocolate and sea salt version, but feel free to make these bars your own and get creative. I mean peanut butter anyone?? Oh those are SO next. Hey even your kids may want to join in on all the fun!
More Bars You’ll Enjoy
- No Bake Almond Butter Granola Bars (copycat Chewy bar recipe!)
- Blueberry Oatmeal Breakfast Bars
- Healthier Pumpkin Bars
- Carrot Cake Oatmeal Breakfast Bars
- Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Bars
Homemade KIND Bars
Ingredients
- 1 tsp. coconut oil, melted and cooled (or any oil would work for this)
- ½ cup unsalted roasted almonds, whole
- ½ cup unsalted dry roasted peanuts, whole
- ½ cup roasted walnuts, chopped
- 1/3 cup puffed rice
- 1 Tbsp flaxseed meal
- ¼ cup brown rice syrup
- 2 Tbsp honey
- ½ tsp vanilla
- ½ tsp sea salt
- ½ cup dark chocolate chips
Instructions
- Line an 8 inch pan with aluminum foil leaving a couple of inches overhanging on each side.
- Drizzle melted coconut oil in a large bowl, making sure to coat the bowl completely so its greasy, and mix together the nuts, puffed rice and flaxseed meal. Set aside.
- In a small saucepan, combine brown rice syrup, honey, vanilla and sea salt and bring to a boil. Once the mixture starts boiling, continually whisk for 3 to 4 minutes, until mixture has thickened and its nice and sticky.
- Pour syrup mixture immediately over nut mixture and stir to combine. Transfer into the lined pan and spread out evenly, making sure there are no gaps.
- Allow mixture to cool for about 30 minutes then, using the overhanging foil, take the block of nuts out of the pan and place on a cutting board. Cut into 10 even bars and allow to cool completely before drizzling chocolate.
- To make the chocolate drizzle, place the dark chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring each time until the chocolate is melted.
- Spoon the chocolate drizzle over the bars and let sit at room temperature until the chocolate has set.
- Store bars in an airtight container for up to a week or freeze to save for later.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I made these today, and they’re pretty good. I waited for the syrup mixture to come to a boil then continued to boil for two minutes. I think next time I might go for three or four minutes, because the end product was a little too soft for my liking. The bars ended up a little bendy but did hold together. I think those few extra minutes might get the syrup closer to the hard ball stage, and might result in a more solid product at room temperature. That being said, I had one after storing them in the fridge for a few hours, and they were nice a firm, was more pleasant to eat than the one I had at room temperature. So if anyone else is having an issue with them being a bit soft storing them in the fridge seems to do the trick.
I’m so anxious to make these – they look delicious! I could only find raw nuts though – do I have to roast them myself, or would the bars be o.k. If I just left them raw?
They would be okay if you just left them raw without roasting 🙂
Just realized I’m in the middle of making these & it doesn’t say how much puffed rice to use. ? Puffed Rice. Hmmmmm…..Now I’m stuck. Guess I’ll just fudge it.
Goodness I’m SO sorry about that! I’ve been going back and updating all the Weight Watchers points for every recipe to the new Freestyle program so the new recipe plugin must have placed a “?” mark there. It’s 1/3 cup puffed rice, but I’m assuming it’s probably too late to let you know that now 🙂 I hope they turned out okay!
Hi! Kelly
This recipe is what i have been looking for, would help if you could give me a couple of substitutes for the rice syrup?
Unfortunately I’ve only used rice syrup for this recipe, but you could use corn syrup or possibly extra honey although I haven’t tested this so I’m not sure how they would turn out. If anyone has tried this please let me know! 🙂
Made these and mine stuck together nicely, but the foil was a sticky mess and am wondering if there’s something else to line the pan with that won’t stick to the bars so much. Also, mine weren’t quite as thick as the regular bars. Need to figure out how to spread the mixture more evenly and get them thicker.
Did you use non-stick foil? You could also use parchment paper 🙂
We LOVED these bars. They only lasted one evening in my house. I cut them in small bite size pieces to make them little grab bites. I also used rice krispees instead of rice puffs. SO GOOD!
So glad you liked these Lesli!! Such a great idea making them into little bites 🙂
My high school daughter is very into athletics and healthy eating so I’m always trying to find things she can pack. Kind bars are so expensive so I was glad to find this recipe. I made tie batches this afternoon. The first I did according to instructions and shaped them in an 8×8 dish according to instructions. Mine cooled quite firm but crumbled when I separated the bars. I felt like they needed to be thicker to stay together so the second batch I added 1/2 a batch to (1 1/2 total recipe). It seemed to do the trick by adding more surface area to keep it all together.
Thanks for the recipe!
Great idea! So glad you and your daughter enjoyed these 🙂
So I made this recipe thinking I could easily replace the rice syrup with maple, only to fine AFTER I was waiting for it too cool, I noticed in the comments that she doesn’t recommend any replacements because the rice syrup is the best way to make them stick together… SOOOOO I just turned them into candy bars instead lol. I just covered the whole thing in melted chocolate (I used dark cuz that’s how I roll) ad put it in the fridge for a half hour. Then I flipped it over and put it back in the pan (replaced the foil) and did the same on the other side and VOILA!! Kind bars for those that don’t count calories!! 😘 A simple solution for those that made the same mistake as me.
Hi there! This recipe looks awesome! I also love the dark chocolate and sea salt Kind bars and want to try this recipe. My only concern is that I’m type 2 diabetic and also working on losing weight. I would really like to keep the chocolate but is there anything else you could recommend I substitute for the brown rice syrup and honey? Thanks in advance! 🙂
I agree with what everyone else says, these don’t set up (even boiling for 3 minutes). They taste fine, but they aren’t “bars” so much as a bunch of nuts in some sweet substance 🙂
Hmmm I’m going to try and make these again because I can’t seem to figure out why some of you are having trouble with the bars holding shape. Did you whisk continuously as the mixture boiled? Hopefully I can figure this out for you! 🙂