Hi y'all! So I'm here today to bring you one of my favorite recipes for a healthy (yet quite frankly seems like such a yummy treat) snack. It combines two of my absolute favorite foods, peanut butter and chocolate...just something about that salty from the peanut butter and the sweet from the chocolate. I'm convinced they were meant for each other! It makes enough snacks for a few days for me, which is nice because I'm so busy lately between work, that mom life, grad school, my duties as a beauty queen, and still carving out time to keep my sanity by getting my workouts in that having this healthy treat for me just to grab and go is a huge plus; however, with that said just because I have been even busier than normal does not give me any good reason to slack off on keeping a clean and healthy diet . Healthy foods don't have to be inconveniencing at all and with some thorough planning and preparation, you can have clean meals and snacks ready to go whenever needed. I'm here today to bring you a recipe for my no bake peanut butter and chocolate protein bites that I made just last night. These are versatile in that they can be used for breakfast, a snack, or even a tasty (and guilt free) dessert ; )...plus since they are pre-made you can literally just grab and go. Best of all, they are healthy...you know what is going in them so no preservatives or artificial anything...and they are naturally sweetened. Btw, I in no way invented the concept of these "bites", but the beauty of these is that they can really be catered to your taste or needs so feel comfortable experimenting with the ingredients. They (most often lol) are hard to mess up so have fun with these ; ).
Ingredients
1 cup dry oatmeal
1/3 cup chocolate chips (I use Enjoy Life chocolate chips...I prefer using the dark chocolate variety...bc they are vegan, but feel free to use whatever chips you desire)
1/2 cup peanut butter (I use natural pb free of anything other than peanuts and a bit of salt, but feel free to use other variations such as almond butter or sunflower butter)
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1.5 scoop protein powder (I use Arbonne protein powder...I'll alternate between chocolate and vanilla...if you are in the market for a healthy, vegan, and clean protein powder, send me a message...I'd love to talk to you about Arbonne)
1/8 cup unsweetened coconut
1/3 cup agave (if agave isn't your thing then substitute honey)
1 tsp vanilla
cinnamon (optional, but I think it's a nice touch)
Directions
Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl (it will seem thick initially, but just keep at it and it will mix nicely). Place into the fridge for about 30 minutes to harden somewhat...this will help it be easier to shape into balls. After 30 minutes shape into balls.
I used an ice cream scoop to scoop some of the mixture so that they would all be relatively the same size and used my hands to pack it into a ball. You can try rolling it in between your hands, but I found simply packing it into the shape nice and tightly worked the best for me. I ended up with 12 bites. I would have probably had 13 if someone wasn't picking at it as she rolled them ; ). Personally, I think these taste better when left in the fridge overnight...they also harden up a bit and become less sticky when this is done. I hope you enjoy these as much as we do. Let me know!
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