At our house, we are always looking for great, simple snacks on the go.  These easy 5 ingredient oat bars are gluten free, vegan, and allergy friendly!

This recipe only has 6 very simple ingredients.

The best part about it?  You can customize it to your linking.  Don’t like strawberries?  Try blueberries!  

You can substitute any fruit you would like.  Make these bars your own!

I prefer to use dried fruit in this gluten free bar recipe with oats, since the dry fruit absorbs some of the moisture from the banana, and helps the bars stick together.

If you use fresh fruit, your bars may not hold as well, and you may want to cook them a little longer.

Are Oats Gluten Free?

One of the most confusing things about oats is are they gluten free or not?

The trick here is your oats MUST say gluten free on the packaging.

Oats are one of those things that can be easily contaminated by wheat.

This can happen a number of different ways.  It can happen in the factory, or it can happen during harvesting.

If a field of oats is next to a field of wheat, there will obviously be some contamination.

This is why it is so important to read the labels each and every time if you have some sort of dietary restriction.

None of the other ingredients should contain gluten in this recipe, but always read those labels!

The Trick For Ripening Bananas

This recipe uses ripe bananas.  There are many ways to make your bananas ripen, but a lot of them take some time.

Ripe banana are the easiest to mash, which is why I use them. You can still make this if your bananas are not ripe.

If your bananas are firm, really manhandle them.

Smash them around and squeeze them in their skins.

It will make them much easier to mash!

Easy 6 Ingredient Oat Bars {Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Vegan}

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These easy 6 ingredient oat bars are a staple in our house, we always have a batch on hand.

They are made with gluten free rolled oats, and absoltely do not contain any dairy, animal products, or common allergens.

In this recipe, I use dried strawberries, but you can put in any dried fruit you would like.

We also love dried unsweetened coconut and dark chocolate chips, and they go in each and every batch.

We love Pascha Chocolate Chips because they are allergy friendly.

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 3 ripe bananas
• 3 cups gluten free rolled oats
• 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
• 1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup dried strawberries, or other dried fruit of your choice

Instructions

1. Line a 9x9 pan with parchment paper, and preheat the oven to 350 F. Parchment is key to making sure these bars don't stick to anyting and are well formed.
2. Peel and mash the three ripe banans in a large bowl. If your banans aren't ripe, beat them up a little bit before you peel them! Smash them aorund with your hands to artificially ripen them and make them easier to mash and mix.
3. Add 1/4 cup melted coconut oil and mix well. Adding the coconut oil to the banana is really the key mixing step, you want the two to be well incoroperated before you add any solid ingredients.
4. Add 4 cups of rolled oats and mixed well.
5. Add 1 cup shredded coconut and mix well.
6. Add 1 cup dried strawberries are in very large pieces, make sure to break them up as you mix them.
7. Add 1/2 cup cocolate chips and mix well.
8. Scrape mixture into lined pan with parchment, and press down with hard with a spatula to pack them in and level them out. You want these to be very dense, like this:
   
9. Bake a 350F for 1 hour. You want them to be a nice golden brown color:
   
10. Remove from oven, and allow to cool before cutting into nine equal pieces.

Notes

The key to keeping these bars togehter is to mix everthing really well, and then really pack them into the pan lined with parchment.

Because we use parchment, there is no worry about these gluten free oat bars sticking to the pan.

While we use dried strawberries in this recipe, any kind of dried fruit will do, you can get really createive with what you put in them!

The key elements of this recipe are the bananas, oats, and coconut oil. Feel free to try putting other things in them as well.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

9

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 319Total Fat: 17gSaturated Fat: 12gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 8mgCarbohydrates: 40gFiber: 7gSugar: 15gProtein: 5g

Nutrition data is estimated.