I don’t know about you but I’ve been hearing about chia seeds a lot over the past couple years.  They’re always on super food lists in magazines or in healthy food bloggers’ smoothies or oatmeal concoctions.  They are supposed to have numerous health benefits like all the other seeds and crazy whole grains that are popular among the Whole Foods crowd.

I’m always game to try a new health food as long as it’s not too crazy, and while my initial reaction to idea of chia seeds reverts to a particularly catchy commercial jingle, I figured that all of this hype had to be for a reason.  I have heard that they don’t really add much flavor beyond maybe a slight nuttiness when added food, so how bad could they be?

In my travels on the internet I found a no-bake granola bar recipe that seemed like the perfect venue to add some chia seeds.  I took the basic recipe made a few tweaks to make it a little more exciting.  Not only did the granola bars turn out great, since they were no-bake, it was also minimal effort!  Besides the miniscule black dots in the bars you don’t even notice the chia seeds.  They’re working for me so far, maybe I’ll throw the leftover seeds in my next protein shake…

No-Bake Granola Bars

Yields about 20 squares depending on size, Adapted quite a bit from Lauren’s Latest

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 2/3-3/4 cup honey (depending on if you need more binding liquid)
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4 cups instant oats (not old fashioned rolled)
• 2 cups puffed rice cereal (Rice Krispies)
• 1/3 cup black chia seeds
• 3/4 dried cranberries
• 1 cup slivered almonds
• 1 10 oz bag white chocolate chips

Method

1. Line a 9 x 13 pan with parchment for easy removal.
2. Melt butter, honey, and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat (I started with 2/3 cup of honey and added a dash more later when I needed more liquid).  Let it bubble for about 2 minutes before removing it from the heat and adding the vanilla.
3. Add rice cereal, oats, and chia seeds to the wet mixture.  Mix well to combine.
4. Add dried cranberries, almonds, and half of the white chocolate.  The chocolate will melt so you want to save some to put on top of the bars in the pan.
5. Once the mixture is uniform, press it into the lined pan and sprinkle on more white chocolate chips (I didn’t end up using the whole bag, but pretty close).
6. Allow to cool, slice, and enjoy!