A holiday flavored protein bar treat for the entire family using whey protein, pumpkin puree and other natural, healthy ingredients! Great for holiday parties.
Protein Pumpkin Bars with Oats Recipe
With fall approaching lots of stores are starting to bring out their warmer clothing, cinnamon and harvest scented candles and lots of recipes are popping up for pumpkin flavored dishes. Many of them are dessert and many of them are not high in protein or good for the waist line, so I wanted to come up with a pumpkin flavored protein recipe that will be great for holiday parties or just to take with you on the go instead of grabbing for a protein bar at the check out of your convenience store. Now don’t get me wrong, I buy protein bars too but it’s nice to have the option to make your own and be in control of each ingredient, especially the flours, proteins and sugars being added. The beauty of baking is you can up the protein, lower the carbs, swap the fats if you want and test and try new combinations until you find the perfect recipe for your taste. Cooking with protein powder is hard, it tends to make recipes dry, so it takes a few times to work with it to get it just right. Thankfully I did the test work for you, so the recipe below makes the bars moist, delicious and high protein without the dry texture.
Ingredients List:
- 1 can of pumpkin puree
- 6 heaping tbsp of coconut flour – link to buy
- ½ tbsp of sea salt
- 3 drops of liquid stevia – link to buy
- 2 scoops of French Vanilla BodyTech protein powder – link to buy
- 1 cup of unsweetened apple sauce
- 3 whole eggs
- 3 drops of vanilla crème sweet drops flavoring – link to buy
- 1 tbsp of low sodium baking powder – link to buy
- 1 cup of oats
- 4 dashes of nutmeg
- 4 dashes of cinnamon
- 3 heaping tbsp of Just Great Stuff powdered peanut butter – link to buy
- 2 tbsp of cocoa nibs (optional) – link to buy
- ¼ cup of chopped walnuts (optional)
One thing I love about making protein bars like this is it makes the house smell amazing and allows for me to have a dessert at night on hand that isn’t going to sidetrack my diet or my personal goals for the day. These bars are each under 110 (roughly 108 each) calories which it less than most yogurt cups filled with fruits and sugars. The ingredients are all natural and the protein is a great bonus. Each bar is 3 grams of fat, 13 carbs and 8 grams of protein. This also has 3.5 grams of fiber as well. I make sure to buy organic rolled oats to make this as well which helps to keep me feeling full.
Baking instructions:
- Preheat oven to 385 degrees
- Spray a baking pan with olive oil spray
- Put the mix into a baking pan and spread evenly
- Bake for 35 minutes, but check after 25 based on your oven settings
- Remove from oven and let cool before cutting
- Cut into even squares (recipe makes a dozen nice sized bars)
Let me know if you attempt to make these and how they turn out for you. You can choose to dial down the seasonings if you want, like nutmeg or cinnamon, but I am a big fan of cinnamon whenever I bake things for its health properties. I also added walnuts but feel free to swap for almonds or pecans based on your own preferences. Also the cocoa nibs are great because they don’t melt like a chocolate chip will and stays pretty crunchy and not messy.
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