These Healthy Puffed Rice Bars are easy, healthy snack bars made with 5 natural ingredients. They are dairy-free, refined-sugar-free, and gluten-free! Keep reading to learn how to make vegan rice crispy treats without marshmallows!
I love making simple and healthy snack bars that you can just grab from the fridge and enjoy, like my No-Bake Twix Bars, Samoa Bars, or Healthy Date Bars. It’s a great way to reload or just have a simple guilt-free treat.
Classic peanut butter Rice Crispy bars are not that healthy, even made at home. The classic recipe brings a lot of sugar from corn syrup and melted mini marshmallows.
Here I am sharing with you our healthy puffed cereal bars made with only real ingredients. Rice Krispies from the popular brand Kellogg’s is not vegan. They are fortified with Vitamin D derived from animal sources. However, there are many puffed rice cereal options on the market containing no additives and are 100% vegan.
Ingredients and Substitutions
All you need to make these healthy no-bake bars are 7 ingredients.
- Natural Peanut Butter – Use a fresh jar with oil on top and make sure there is no added sugar or added oil in your peanut butter. Natural Peanut Butter (100% peanuts) is always vegan.
- Maple Syrup – or any unrefined liquid sweetener you love like agave syrup or brown rice syrup. All these options are vegan approved.
- Coconut Oil – use refined coconut oil to avoid coconut flavor. This is the key ingredient to making peanut butter Rice Krispies treats without marshmallows and still have them hold together. Coconut oil sets the bars under just 73 °F/23 °C.
- Sea Salt – optional. Don’t add if you are using salted peanut butter.
- Vanilla Extract – for flavor.
- Puffed Rice Cereals – Rice Krispies from Kellogg’s are not vegan. That’s why these vegan rice crispy treats are made with natural puffed cereals with no added sugar or vitamin D3. You can use any type of cereals, such as puffed brown rice, puffed quinoa, puffed amaranth, or puffed spelt.
- Dark Chocolate Chips – I am using vegan chocolate chips. Check the ingredients list to make sure there is no added milk powder.
- Optional – flax meal or vanilla pea protein powder. This firm up the bars and make them crunchier after being stored in the fridge overnight
How To Make Puffed Rice Bars
This is quite a simple recipe if you follow my recipe card further down, but I’ve included below a few pictures to highlight key steps.
Pour all the puffed rice base ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
Stir the mixture with a spatula until it’s well combined.
Line a square baking sheet with parchment paper and press the sticky puffed rice into it. Freeze it for 10 minutes.
Combine dark chocolate chips and coconut oil in a mixing bowl until melted and pour it on the base.
Spread the melted chocolate with a spatula to cover the whole base. Place it in the freezer again to set.
After 10 minutes in the freezer, you can unmold and slice the bars.
Storage Instructions
These vegan chocolate peanut butter rice crispy treats must be stored in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. They soften quickly at a temperature above 74 °F (23 °C) and are better kept in a cold place. If you want to take away these bars, make sure they are stored in a cool place.
Otherwise, if it is hot where you live, you can freeze the bars in an airtight container and thaw them at room temperature. Their texture will be perfect after 1 hour at room temperature, so if you want to travel with these bars, freeze and store them in a cold place in a container.
Frequently Asked Questions
Puffed Rice is a very healthy cereal when it’s not loaded with sugar and other additives.
Yes, you can swap the puffed rice for puffed quinoa, puffed amaranth, or puffed wheat.
More No-Bake Peanut Butter Recipes
I love to create no-bake peanut butter snacks. They are easy, healthy, and handy! You may also want to try my healthy vegan snack recipes below.
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Healthy Puffed Rice Bars
Ingredients
- ¾ cup Peanut Butter (Unsalted) - no added oil, no added sugar, fresh jar
- ⅓ cup Maple Syrup
- 2 tablespoons Coconut Oil
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 3 cups Crispy Rice Cereals - brown or rice crispies or puffed quinoa or puffed amaranth
Optional – firm up the bars
- ¼ cup Flaxmeal - or vanilla protein powder
Chocolate Layer
- ¾ cup Dairy-Free Dark Chocolate Chips
- 1 teaspoon Coconut Oil
Instructions
- Line a 8-inch x 8-inch square pan with parchment paper. Lightly oil the paper with cooking spray or coconut oil. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, add puffed rice, flaxmeal (if used), stir to combine. Add in peanut butter, maple syrup, coconut oil, and vanilla. Stir until all the puffed rice is coated with the mixture.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and press firmly with a silicone spatula. You can also place a piece of parchment paper on top of the bar and press firmly with your hand to prevent the mixture from sticking to your fingers as you press.
- Place the pan in the freezer to set for 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the chocolate layer.
Chocolate layer
- In a small saucepan, over low-medium heat, melt dark chocolate chips, coconut oil, until smooth and shiny.
- Remove the pan from the freezer and pour the melted chocolate all over the bar.
- Spread the chocolate using a greased spatula until all the bar is coated with the melted chocolate.
- Return the pan to the freezer for 10 minutes or until the chocolate layer is set. Then, refrigerate for 1 hour before slicing.
Slicing
- Remove from the fridge and wait for 5 minutes before cutting to prevent the chocolate top layer from cracking.
- If you can, warm the blade of your knife under a flame or boiling water (dry in a towel) and cut the bars into 12 squares. The warm blade will cut the chocolate layer easily, preventing the layer from breaking into pieces.
Can you omit the oil for this recipe?
They won’t firm up, you need the oil here.
Coconut oil isn’t healthy and clogs arteries. It’s dangerous to say this is healthy. Even the heart associations say this will raise cholesterol and clog arteries. Google it. You should list an alternative for those of us who know what healthy is.
If you read this meta study (a summary of many research studies), you’ll see that Coconut Oil indeed increases cholesterol, but it’s not as simple.
Compared to other vegetable oils, it increases the good cholesterol (HDL) more that it increases the bad cholesterol (LDL) – respectively +0.57mg/dL and +0.26ml/dL. So it’s nowhere near as bad as black-and-white headlines try to make it.
Compared to animal-derived fat like butter, coconut oil still increases the good cholesterol by 0.33mg/dL but it decreases the bad cholesterol by -0.37mg/dL.
So the recommendation is to limit coconut oil, just like it’s recommended to limit dairy butte, but it’s not to completely stop using coconut oil.
The other point I’d like to make is that commercial rice bars are absolutely full of many additives, bad fats, pure sugar, so the “healthy” term is in comparison to all other puffed rice bars.
I love the flavors in this recipe! I’m already thinking about how to adapt it for my own preferences.
Can almond butter work instead of peanut butter?
Absolutely!
How much does 1 serving weigh?
About 60-70 grams (2.1 – 2.5 ounces)
Calories are through the roof on a single serving. What can you do to this recipe to “fix” that? Can this work with Peanut Butter Powder?
Make smaller portions
Can you make and freeze these?
Yes, you can read the text above the recipe to learn how.
it was so good made it for a school project and will make it a lot more after trying it
Just made it !! It came out really good.
The only question i have is that my puffs didn’t stick together after making bar. When I cut the bar puffs came loose…what did i do wrong?
Great recipe thanks !!
That’s amazing ! To make sure they stick press firmly the bar into the pan, wait the 1 hour in the fridge to set and make sure you use small puffed cereals, they stick better together than large puffed cereals. Here in New Zealand puffed rice can be thick as you see on my picture and this variety doesn’t hold as well as the the smaller puffed rice like rice krispies brand so you need to press the bar hard! Maybe try puffed quinoa next time or amaranth it hold even better, Enjoy, XOXO Carine