After a little break over the holiday period, I’m getting back into my normal routine. A big part of that is making sure I have healthy snacks in the fridge to keep me on track. These Choc Mint Medjool Date Energy Bars are my latest creation. I’m eating them as a pre-workout snack or if I just need a little boost.
I developed the recipe for Natural Delights® using their pitted Medjool dates. You can buy them in Coles if you’re in Australia. One serve of Medjool dates (which is about two Medjool dates) contains 33g of carbs and 281mg of potassium, so they’re a natural source of energy and can assist with muscle recovery.
Since I use 10 Medjool dates in the recipe to get 10 bars, there’s about one Medjool date per bar. But you can easily cut the mixture up into larger or smaller bars if you want to adjust the serving size.
The bars are vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free and grain-free. I like to use raw almonds in the mixture, but you can substitute another nut like cashew nuts, walnuts or brazil nuts if you prefer.
You could also use cocoa powder instead of raw cacao powder for the chocolate hit. To add the mint element, you can use a couple of drops of food-grade pure peppermint oil if you have some, or simply use peppermint extract or essence.
Serves
10 bars
Prep time
5 mins
Cook time
30 mins chilling
Ingredients
- 10 Natural Delights® Pitted Medjool Dates
- 1 cup raw almonds
- 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- 1/3 cup raw cacao powder (or cocoa powder)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1-2 drops pure peppermint oil (or 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract)
Method
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1Line a 10 x 16cm container with baking paper or cling film.
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2Process all ingredients in a food processor or high speed blender until the mixture comes together in clumps. Press the mixture firmly into the lined container using the back of a spoon or your fingers.
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3Chill in the freezer for about 30 minutes, then cut into bars using a sharp knife.
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4Store in the fridge or freezer.
Notes
You might also like my 4 Ingredient Brownie Batter Bites.
really love this recipe!
can you provide with metric measurements of this recipe?
Great to hear you love the recipe 🙂 Since this is one of my older recipes I didn’t include the metric measurements – I include metric in all of my newer recipes! For this recipe, metric would be: 10 x Medjool dates, 143g almonds, 47g coconut, 39g cacao powder, 5ml (1 tsp) vanilla extract and 2.5ml (1/2 tsp) peppermint extract (if using peppermint extract instead of peppermint oil).