Tahini Granola Bars

Lightly sweetened with honey and flavored with coconut, vanilla, cherries & cinnamon, these tahini granola bars are a wholesome and yummy treat.

Once upon a time, I almost started a granola bar business. But do you know how many granola bars you have to sell to make a very, very modest living?

A lot. Really, a lot.

After a year of perfecting my granola bar recipes, I still couldn't get the math to work in my favor. So at the last minute, I decided that becoming a granola bar goddess was not my destiny.

This recipe for tahini granola bars is from those days when I was perfecting batch after batch of granola. These bars are a little sweet and a little salty with a texture that's chewy in the middle and crumbly around the edges. Oats are baked into the bars with a gloriously rich mixture of tahini, honey, coconut, coconut oil, olive oil, vanilla, cherries and cinnamon.

Tahini granola bars are nut-free. If you're looking for more nut-free granola bar recipes, you can also try my nut-free granola bars made with sunflower butter.

If you like almond butter, you'll want to try no-bake chia granola bars or chewy almond butter granola bars. For a gooey baked treat, try almond butter bars with chocolate.

Why This Recipes Works

• Tahini adds rich flavor and keeps the bars from tasting overly sweet
• The bars are lightly sweetened with honey - no refined sugar
• These baked bars hold together well when cut
• The bars have a blend of healthy fats - olive oil, coconut oil, flax and hemp

How Do You Get Granola Bars to Stick Together?

Good question! It's frustrating when granola bar don't stick together. To help baked granola bars stick together, you need to use the right combination of ingredients.

1. Use Enough Sweetener

Sugar is the magic binder that holds granola bars together. It's tempting to use less sugar so that granola bars will be healthier, but then it's more likely that your bars won't stick together.

You don't have to use refined sugar. In fact, liquid sweeteners - like honey or syrup - help bars stick together even better because they add both sugar and moisture.

Dried, pureed fruit (liked dates) can also be used to sweeten granola bars, but it doesn't work as well in baked bars. If you want to use date paste, you'll have better luck making no-bake granola bars.

2. Add Enough Fat

Butter or oil supplies the fat that helps hold baked bars together. Nut and seed butters (like tahini) also add fat. The trick is adding just the right amount; if too much fat if added the bars will be too tender and fall apart.

Butter adds rich, delicious flavor to granola bars. You can also use a lighter, neutral oil like sunflower oil. For these bars, I opted for healthier (but stronger flavored) coconut oil and olive oil.

3. Add An Extra Binder

In this recipe, I also add oat flour to bars, which helps bind them together. Oat flour is simply rolled oats that have been blended into a flour-like texture. You can buy oat flour or make it at home by blending oats in a food processor.

Egg white can also bind bars together, especially if the bars contain lots of nuts and seeds.

Baking Tips That Hold Granola Bars Together

In addition to the right ingredients, you also need a few baking tips that will keep the bars from falling apart.

• Use the right sized pan - Thick bars tend to crumble and fall apart in the middle. Try to keep the bar less than 1-inch thick.
• Line the pan with parchment - Lining the pan with parchment lets you lift the bars out of the pan after they're baked, making it easier to cut the bars.
• Press the bars like you mean it: Don't gently pat bars into a pan. Press with all of your might. I like to use a wide off-set spatula to press bars down. You can also use a lightly oiled glass jar to press bars into a pan.
• Chill - The bars need to cool completely before being cut. This usually takes a minimum of 1 hour, but longer is better. I like to put the bars in the refrigerator to chill before I cut them.
• Use a long knife - A long chef's knife or serrated bread knife works best for cutting bars.

What is Tahini?

The only ingredient in tahini is hulled white sesame seeds, which have been ground into a smooth, creamy consistency. If you've ever eaten a sesame seed, that's what tahini taste like too - nutty, earthy and slightly bitter.

Tahini does not need to be refrigerated. It can be stored in a cool pantry after opening the jar. Make sure to stir tahini well before using, as the oil tends to separate and rise to the top.

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