Vegan protein bars can be a tasty and convenient way to help you meet your daily protein targets.
However, pre-made protein bars are expensive and often contain unhealthful ingredients, such as low-quality protein powders, artificial sweeteners and flavors, excess sugar, low-quality vitamins, unhealthy fats, and even hidden animal products.
People often shy away from homemade protein bars because they appear complicated and time-consuming to make.
Fortunately, nothing could be further from the truth!
Most protein bar companies don’t want you to know vegan protein bars are incredibly easy to make in under ten minutes, using less than five ultra-high-quality ingredients (for real).
Read on to learn more + try some of our exclusive recipes below!
Why Make Your Own Vegan Protein Bars?
Vegan protein bars are popular because they’re convenient, generally taste great, and are a good source of protein and other nutrients.
However, as discussed in the introduction, they’re also expensive and vary significantly in quality of ingredients and nutritional value.
Here are ten more reasons to make your own vegan protein bars:
- They can be customized to meet your tastes and dietary needs or restrictions.
- They’re economical.
- No worries about non-vegan ingredients.
- You control what types of sugars and sweeteners go in, which means no worries about excess carbs or artificial ingredients.
- You can make large batches to freeze.
- You have the option to add various nutritional power-ups such as healthy fats, greens powders, probiotics, fiber, and superfoods.
- They’re low-waste.
- You control the type and quality of the protein. This is especially important given contamination issues with various protein powders. You can also opt to skip protein powder for a lower-protein bar made from whole foods like nuts, seeds, and quinoa.
- You control the quantity of protein to meet your needs.
- They only require 4-5 base ingredients. The rest is up to you.
Overcoming the Challenges of Making Vegan Protein Bars
The main challenge with making vegan protein bars is texture, as vegan protein powders tend to make recipes a bit dry, especially when combined with nut butters.
The simple solution to this is to add more moisture than you would to something like a whey protein-based bar, for example.
Usually 2-4 tablespoons of a moisture-enhancing ingredient will be enough to take a bar from dry to delicious.
Natural moisture-enhancing vegan protein bar ingredients include:
- Apple sauce
- Mashed banana
- Pureed prunes, apricots, or other dried fruits
- Canned pumpkin or squash
- Liquid sweeteners such as maple syrup, agave, monk fruit syrup, etc.
- Water—just a few tablespoons can make a big difference
- Vegan yogurt
- Coconut or avocado oil
- Chia or flax eggs (combine 1 tablespoon chia or flax seeds with 2 1/2 tablespoons water to create a gel-like “egg” substance)
- Shredded coconut
The other challenge is finding a vegan protein powder that tastes good and will not take away from your recipes.
BioChem’s 100% Vegan Protein Powders contain a palate-pleasing combination of sustainably-sourced pea, hemp, and cranberry protein, lightly sweetened with organic stevia and monk fruit extract and enhanced with natural vanilla and cherry or vanilla and cocoa.
Its neutral, non-chalky, lightly sweet flavor makes it an ideal protein powder to add to your recipes.
Now that you understand how to overcome common challenges, let’s make some bars!
The Anatomy of a Perfect Vegan Protein Bar
Many store-bought vegan protein bars have a long list of ingredients.
However, homemade versions are deceptively simple, which is excellent news for your wallet, pantry, and digestion.
You can always add more ingredients to adjust the texture, flavor, and nutritional profile, but the following form the basic anatomy of a vegan protein bar:
- A binder: Some type of nut or seed butter or a bean puree. A thick vegan yogurt can also work here.
- A sweetener: Maple syrup, agave, sugar, stevia, date syrup, monk fruit, etc. Note: If your protein powder is already sweetened, you may not need a separate sweetener, though a sticky sweetener can help the mixture bind and add moisture.
- A protein powder, Such as BioChem or your favorite vegan brand
- Some people skip this in favor of a whole food option such as hemp hearts, lentils, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, etc., or add both
- A flour or meal: This isn’t always necessary, however, sometimes the addition of a flour, such as almond, coconut, flax meal, or oat flour helps to bind ingredients and improve texture.
- A moistening agent: If you’re using a nut or seed butter, a moistening agent is almost always recommended (no one wants that chalky protein bar choking feeling!). A couple tablespoons of coconut or avocado oil, apple sauce, or mashed banana usually does the trick.
These are the five core ingredients that make up the anatomy of a vegan protein bar.
Easy peasy, right?
Once you’ve got this down, you can customize your bar by adding other ingredients.
Optional additions to vegan protein bar recipes:
- Ingredients for texture: Such as puffed rice or quinoa, oats, millet, vegan chocolate chips, cacao nibs, dried fruits, candied ginger, shredded or flaked coconut, sesame seeds, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, etc.
- Flavor boosters: Such as cocoa, cacao, pure vanilla extract, vanilla bean paste, cinnamon, cardamom, lemon extract, mint, almond extract, etc.
- Nutritional power-ups: Spirulina, MCT oil, coconut oil, barley grass, maca powder, etc.
- A coating: Such as melted chocolate, carob, vegan cream cheese icing, or a simple glaze.
How To Make Your Own Vegan Protein Bar
Once you have your core ingredients, it’s as easy as mixing them up in food processor or bowl (a food processor is recommended), pressing them into a pan, adding your optional coating or drizzle, letting them set in the fridge for an hour or more, cutting them up, and then storing in wax paper.
No baking required. Check out the following tested vegan protein recipes.
Peanut Butter Chocolate Espresso Crunch Vegan Protein Bars
This twist on an old classic is delicious, satisfying, and easy to make.
Plus, the espresso gives you a little extra pick-me-up in the morning, pre- or post-workout, or anytime you need a healthy energy boost.
Yield: 12 bars with approximately 21 grams of protein per bar
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups organic unsweetened all-natural peanut butter
- 1 cup BioChem Vegan Chocolate Protein
- 2-3 tablespoons maple syrup, agave, or monk fruit syrup
- 2-3 tablespoons applesauce
- 1-2 tablespoons coconut oil
- This may not be necessary if your peanut butter is quite oily.
- 2-3 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Note: If you peanut butter is already salted, skip this step
- 1/2 cup puffed rice or quinoa
- 1-2 tablespoons coarsely ground espresso or your favorite coffee
- Omit if sharing with kiddos.
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional) melted with 1-2 tablespoons plant milk
How to Make:
- Combine the peanut butter, protein powder, almond flour, maple syrup/agave/monk fruit syrup, etc, applesauce, vanilla, and salt in a food processor fitted with the standard blade.
- Pulse until ingredients are combined.
- This is the time to taste for texture. If the mixture is too dry, add additional applesauce or coconut oil.
- If you’re mixing in a bowl, use a fork to mix ingredients, then get in there with your hands to knead into a moist dough.
- Stir in puffed rice or quinoa and espresso powder.
- Press the mixture in an 8X8 baking pan with your fingers or using the back of a dry measuring cup.
- There is no need to line the baking pan, as these will come out easy. However, for extra easy extraction, you can line the pan with parchment or wax paper.
- Melt the chocolate chips with 1-2 tablespoons of plant milk in a double boiler for 3-5 minutes or until melted and shiny.
- Carefully remove from heat and spread over the protein bar mixture.
- Refrigerate until set, at least 30 minutes.
- Using a very sharp knife, cut into 8-12 bars.
These can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or you can freeze them and pull them out as-needed (recommended).
Notes: The texture and moistness of this recipe can vary greatly depending on the type of peanut butter you use. Therefore, be sure to taste test it and add more or less apple sauce or coconut oil depending on the texture.
For a peanut-free version, substitute almond, cashew, or sunflower seed butter.
Vanilla Chia Chai Vegan Protein Bars
It may be hard to say three times fast, but these exotically spiced protein bars are a cinch to make and a pleasure to eat.
They also go great with a nice cup of tea.
Yield: 12 bars with approximately 13 grams of protein per bar
Ingredients:
- 1 ½ cups all-natural, unsweetened cashew butter
- 1 cup BioChem Vegan Vanilla Protein
- 1 tablespoon chia seeds
- 1 tablespoon chai spice mix*
- 2 tablespoons almond or oat flour
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup, agave syrup, or monk fruit syrup
- 2 tablespoons apple sauce.* Note: You can also omit the syrup and add 4 tablespoons of applesauce if preferred
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or almond extract
- ½ teaspoon salt. Note: If your cashew butter is salted, omit this additional salt
- Optional: add 1/3 cup melted white chocolate chips with one tablespoon plant milk to drizzle on top.
*Chai Spice Mix
If you can find chai spice mix premade, use that. Otherwise, if you can make your own—here’s how:
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
- ½ teaspoon allspice
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
Mix together with a fork.
How to Make:
- If you haven’t already done so, mix up your chai spice so it’s ready to use.
- Combine the cashew butter, protein powder, chai spice mix, almond or oat flour, maple syrup/agave/monk fruit syrup, etc, applesauce, vanilla or almond extract, and salt in a food processor fitted with the standard blade.
- Pulse until ingredients are combined. Stir in the chia seeds with a spoon. Note: If you’re mixing in a bowl, use a fork to mix ingredients in the same order, then get in there with your hands to knead into a moist dough.
- Press the mixture in an 8X8 baking pan with your fingers or using the back of a dry measuring cup. Note: There is no need to line the baking pan, as these will come out easy. However, you can line the pan with parchment or wax paper.
- If a white chocolate drizzle is desired, melt the white chocolate chips with the plant milk in a double boiler for 3-5 minutes or until melted and shiny.
- Carefully remove from heat and drizzle over the chia chai protein bar mixture.
- Refrigerate until set, at least 30 minutes.
- Using a very sharp knife, cut into 8-12 bars.
These can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or you can freeze them and pull them out as-needed (recommended).
Recipe notes: Cashew butter is recommended as it is the most neutral-tasting nut butter. However, raw almond butter or sunbutter could be substituted.
If you can’t find or make your own chai mix, you can substitute apple pie spice mix or pumpkin pie spice mix. Or, just add some cinnamon and cardamom.
Flaxseeds may be substituted for chia seeds, but won’t have the same pop of texture.
Raspberry Lime Frozen Yogurt Bark Protein Bars
Frozen yogurt bark is trending big in health-conscious parenting circles and as a healthier, protein-rich treat.
It’s also a great grownup variation on your standard protein bar, especially after a hot, sweaty workout or yard work session.
Here, we take a basic recipe, veganize it, and add vanilla protein powder for a delicious and filling snack, dessert, or post-workout cool-down treat.
Yield: 8 bars with 13-20 grams of protein per bar (depending on the type of yogurt you use)
Ingredients:
- 1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries
- 2 limes, zested and halved
- 3 tablespoons maple syrup, agave syrup, or monk fruit syrup
- 1 ½ cups plain or vanilla vegan Greek-style yogurt. Note: You can use any vegan yogurt, but a Greek-style will typically contain more protein and be richer. If you use a sweetened yogurt, cut the amount of syrup in the raspberries by half or omit the additional sweetener altogether.
- 1 cup BioChem Vegan Vanilla Protein
- ½ cup granola
- ⅓ cup melted white or dark chocolate chip with 1 tablespoon plant milk for a drizzle
- Optional: Additional fresh berries to garnish on top.
Directions:
- Mash the fresh raspberries with maple syrup, lime zest, and lime juice in a bowl. Note: If using frozen raspberries, heat everything in a small saucepan to thaw, then mash with a fork.
- Fold the raspberry mixture in with the yogurt and protein powder. Note: You can get artsy and make this swirly, or just mix everything together for a pretty pink hue.
- Pour into a 9 X 12 casserole dish or baking pan (make sure it has straight sides to prevent the mixture from spilling over the edge).
- Sprinkle your favorite granola and optional fresh berries or chocolate drizzle on top.
- Freeze for 4-6 hours.
- Cut or break into squares and store in a large container with wax or parchment paper between the bars.
- Pull out of the freezer to enjoy whenever you need a cool treat.
Store in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Recipe notes: You can use any combination of fruit and citrus to make this recipe. You could also do a chocolate variation by adding BioChem’s Vegan Chocolate Protein Powder with chocolate chips and raspberries.
Looking For More Protein-Based Recipes?
BioChem is committed to providing a variety of delicious and tested protein-based recipes to fuel your healthy lifestyle.
Check out the recipe section of our blog for loads of inspiration including: