Cranberry Orange Granola Bars
These wholesome cranberry-orange granola bars are a great healthy snack! They're made with oats, honey, nuts, dried cranberries and orange zest.
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on August 29, 2024
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Good morning from New York! I am perched on a cushy hotel bed, with a window overlooking TriBeCa on my left and a bag of homemade granola bars to my right. I’m here because you all voted for my roasted cauliflower lentil tacos when I asked you to. Thank you so much!
The USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council flew me out here to attend their event. The United Nations designated 2016 to be the International Year of Pulses (think beans, chickpeas and lentils) for their significant health, economic and environmental benefits. We’re going to celebrate tonight with farmers, chefs and magazine editors. Party on, lentils!!!
These granola bars survived the trip intact, so I can vouch for their portability. I got the idea to make a cranberry orange version of my almond chocolate chip granola bars from Lilly, who commented on my cranberry orange granola recipe and asked how to turn the granola into granola bars.
I offered some suggestions but couldn’t get Lilly’s idea out of my head, so here we are. Wholesome, honey-sweetened, cranberry-orange granola bars made with lots of healthy whole grains, nuts and seeds. These no-bake granola bars would also make great “energy bites,” too, if you’d rather roll the dough between your palms to make one-inch balls. If you appreciate cranberry orange muffins and the like, you’ll love these!
Thank you to Lilly for this idea, and for all of you who come over and leave comments with ideas, questions and suggestions. I read each one and try my very best to respond to every single one of them. I’m always bragging on you guys for being so wonderful. Thank you for voting for my tacos, too! I’ll share my New York adventures on Snapchat today (I’m @cookieandkate), if you’d like to follow along.
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Cranberry Orange Granola Bars
These wholesome cranberry-orange granola bars are a great healthy snack! They’re made with oats, honey, nuts, dried cranberries and orange zest. This gluten free and easily vegan recipe yields 14 to 16 granola bars.
Ingredients
- 1 cup pecan pieces
- ⅓ cup pepitas
- ⅔ cup dried cranberries
- 1 ¾ cups quick-cooking oats (or old-fashioned oats, pulsed briefly in a food processor or blender to break them up)
- 1 teaspoon orange zest, preferably organic (from 1 large orange)
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ to ¾ teaspoon salt, to taste (decrease if your almond/peanut butter is salted)
- 1 cup creamy unsalted almond butter or peanut butter, packed
- ½ cup honey or maple syrup
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- Line a 9-inch square baker with two strips of criss-crossed parchment paper, cut to fit neatly against the base and up the sides. The parchment paper will make it easy for you to slice the bars later.
- In a medium skillet over medium heat, toast the pecans and pepitas, stirring often, until they are fragrant and the pepitas are starting to make little popping noises, about 5 minutes. Transfer the toasted pecans and pepitas to a food processor. Add the cranberries and then run the machine for about 10 seconds, until the nuts and cranberries are all broken up. (If you skip the food processor step, your bars will be more difficult to slice through and more likely to crumble at the edges.)
- In a mixing bowl, combine the contents of the food processor with the oats, orange zest, cinnamon and salt. Whisk to combine.
- In a smaller mixing bowl, whisk together the almond butter, honey and vanilla extract until well blended.
- Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients. Use a big spoon to mix them together until the two are evenly combined and no dry oats remain. This takes some arm muscles, but you can do it! If the mixture was easy to mix together, that’s a sign that you need to add some more oats—sprinkle in more oats until you can’t incorporate any more.
- Transfer the mixture to the prepared square baker. Use your spoon to arrange the mixture fairly evenly in the baker, then use the bottom of a flat, round surface (like a short, sturdy drinking glass), covered in a small piece of parchment paper, to pack the mixture down as firmly and evenly as possible.
- Cover the baker and refrigerate for at least one hour, or preferably overnight. (The oats need time to soak up some of the moisture so they aren’t sticky.) When you’re ready to slice, lift the bars out of the baker by grabbing both pieces of parchment paper on opposite corners. Use a sharp knife to slice the bars into 1” strips, then slice them in half through the middle.
- For portability, you can wrap individual bars in plastic wrap or parchment paper. Bars keep well for a couple of days at room temperature, but I recommend storing individually wrapped bars in a freezer-safe bag in the freezer for best flavor.
Notes
Recipe adapted from my healthy chocolate chip granola bars.
Make it vegan: Use maple syrup instead of honey.
Make it gluten free: Be sure to choose certified gluten-free oats.
Make it nut free: I haven’t tried this, but I think you could replace the almond butter with sunflower seed butter and the pecans with more pepitas and/or sunflower seeds.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
“Healthy homemade granola bars. This recipe is easily customizable. You can substitute the dried fruit, pecans, and chocolate morsels out for what you like.”
Thanks for your review, Maria!
These are SO good and husband approved! I took a reader’s advice and subbed half of the liquid sweetener for pomegranate molasses, and I loved the result. These and the pecan bars are my favorite snack bars to have around the house. Thanks for having such consistently great, healthy recipes on the blog and cookbook.
You’re welcome and I’m happy you found the comments helpful as well, Mariel.
Oh my gosh, I just made these and they are seriously the best granola bars that I have ever eaten! I added extra orange zest because I love the flavour and I will definitely make these again! I highly recommend that everybody makes these. Thank you so much for your recipe and for taking the time To share with us. I doubled the recipe and will freeze half for another day. Do the same!
Orange zest would be lovely! Thank you, Chelsea.
Hi, sorry but I’m not seeing any nutrition so info for this recipe?
Hi Jen, this is a plug-in on my blog and requires you to allow cookies. Make sure that is enabled and you should be set!
Hiya
Cookies are enabled but still not seeing it? Are you just able to copy it into a reply for me please?
They turned out just as described in the recipe even though I adapted it to the contents of my larder, I exchanged the pepitas for simply more pecans, some of the almond butter for cashew butter and left out the orange zest. The result is very delicious and sticks together just so. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing, Claudia!
any suggestion if someone who was making this was to accidentally not read the instructions before starting and just dumped the first four ingredients in a bowl? (using quick cook steel cut oats if that helps) could I just dump everything into the food processor or just finish the bars (loved your other two and can’t wait to try this one)
also loved the fact that you can adjust for bigger output; would love to see a toggle between standard US measurements and metric (grams)
PS love your enchiladas sauce–it is our go to every time we make them
Oh no! What did you end up doing, Sarah? I wish I had a great solution between metric and US, but not yet. Maybe someday!
nothing yet….just sitting in a covered bowl from yesterday. my options seem to be to either try to get out most of the cranberries and toast all the rest and then add the cranberries in the food processor or do just finish it and try again next time the right way (or I could do the first sans the toast)
Just made this for the first time for the family. It was so good and fresh. Everyone in the family loved it which isn’t always the case with a family of 5. Pretty easy to make . Will definitely keep this dish on the permanent weekly menu.
Looks easy peasy. Thanks fr having available
My son shared this website with me as I have been trying to eat little to no sugar and it is now my “go to” source for recipes. I made this granola recipe using steel cut oats as I need to use them up and bars were wonderful! Texture was a bit more dense but very chewy.
Absolutely amazing! Simple and delishous
Hi, the flavour was great but mine never set :(
My sister made these for me when she visited last year. My husband and I have become obsessed! (And neither one of us are fans of pecans or cranberries) now we make them all the time. Thanks for the recipe!
I’m addicted to these. I add a little bit of mini choc chips…wrap them in 2’s and throw them in the freezer. Many days they are my breakfast. I have given them as gifts and folks love them.. Thanks for a keeper recipe (as many of yours are:-))
I am addicted to these!! I add a small amount of mini chocolate chips as well. I make them and freeze them in packs of two’s, great for travel, hikes, on the go or breakfast. Yum!
Hi Kate, Made these bars yesterday but they turned out soft and sticky but they tasted really good. I accidentally used 3 scale thinking it was font size. Lol. But cut recipe in half.
Loved these!
These are amazingly good! Not really sure what I was expecting here, my experience with granola bars are the terrible things that come 12 to a box. These are nothing like those. These are chewy and full of orange and vanilla and cinnamon flavors. Will definitely make these again! Thanks for the recipe.
Happy to hear you loved this recipe, Dan!
My favorite go-to granola bar recipe! These stay together really well and are super delicious. Just right amount of sweetness, and very adaptable to whatever you have on hand
Hooray! That’s great to hear, Aislinn.