Fudge Banana Nut Protein Bars (recipe, nutrition facts, and pics)

[DominationStation]

I've made these bars several times before, and I keep refining them. These were definitely the best yet. I did a full, longass writeup in my journal, and I figured I'd share it with the Nutrition forum.

Ingredients
8-10 Scoops Chocolate Protein Powder (I used Scivation and the rest of my old Dymatize tub)
1 Cup Oats (uncooked)
0-3 oz Nuts (I used Cinnamon Roasted Almonds)
4-8 Tbsp Peanut Butter (I used chunky, as always, and microwaved it first to make it easier to stir)
1-2 Bananas (make sure you mash it up first, obviously--great way to get rid of aging bananas)
2-4 Tbsp Honey (pro-tip: honey weighs ~7 grams per Tbsp, or 4 Tbsp per oz)
1 Cup Milk (I used skim, as always)

Instructions
Add the ingredients to a giant bowl (apply some non-stick spray first--IMPORTANT) in the order they are listed. You can of course tweak the quantities or make substitutions for your personal taste/macronutrient preferences (I tried to give approximations for good ranges, and you can see exactly what I used below). Be sure to stir each additional ingredient very well before adding the next one so that your distribution is even. Once everything is mixed up well in a bowl, pour the mix into a baking pan (again, apply some non-stick spray first--IMPORTANT), smooth it out, cover the top with tinfoil or a lid or something, and place in the refrigerator. In a matter of hours, everything will be excellent.

Finished Product (yes, I am well aware that it looks like vomitty diarrhea--taste it, and THEN you can criticize)



Macros (for the whole batch, the way I made them--tweak as desired)





Notes
I put "bars" in parentheses because they don't come out as solids. You can cut them up into as many bars as desired using a knife or spatula--the above pictured batch is divided into 10 bars, if you are challenged at counting (just take the nutrition facts and move the decimal over one place to the left for the calories/macros on each individual bar). From there, you can either eat them with a spoon/fork out of the pan, scoop them into a plastic baggie, or find some other way to eat them. Either way, they're f*cking incredible and the nutrition facts can be manipulated to perfectly fit any diet.

For the record, this batch was made on Sunday. I have made similar bars before, but I made a few minor changes (such as adding the banana and substituting nuts with more peanut butter) that improved them a great deal. I would HIGHLY recommend these due to taste and price, as long as they don't need to be too portable (and, if you do need to take them on the move, you can always use the plastic-baggie-and-a-fork method). They aren't incredibly cheap to make, considering the protein powder and everything, but I bet if I took the time to calculate the exact price, they'd be about $1/bar, which is a fraction of commercially packaged bars, plus they taste better and are better for you. Seems like a no-brainer to me!

Something I forgot to note is that these can be used very effectively for bulking or cutting. They work for bulking obviously because you can just throw tons of calorie-dense, excellent-tasting ingredients into the mix, and you can wolf the bars down quickly in large quantities. They can also work for cutting (as I'm using them ATM) by manipulating the ingredients slightly (there probably won't even be much of a taste difference) and eating them relatively slowly. I say the latter part because, believe it or not, they are actually pretty damn filling for ~250 calories if you eat just one and walk away. Something about the way they settle in my stomach keeps me a lot more full than a regular 250 calories would. Just sayin'...

For the record, I should also probably note that I have not tried these with any other flavors of protein powder. They might work very well, but I cannot attest to this. If you make them with another flavor (or at all), be sure to let me know how they came out.

Any questions, feel free to ask.

[DominationStation]

bump

[AlwaysTryin]

You hunting reps bumping your thread so soon?

[DominationStation]

You hunting reps bumping your thread so soon?

It was near the bottom of the page, I just really like this recipe and was trying to make sure people saw it...

[Anbob]

looks good, will try these when im done with my current batch.

[0RLY]

I made these. I used a mix of vanilla & unflavored casein & whey instead though because that's what I had on hand. I used very similar ingredient ratios as you, except for a little more peanut butter. I also sprinkled Truvia on top to make up for some missing sweetness from the unflavored whey. I thought about adding sf ff chocolate pudding mix but decided to try it without this time.

It tasted pretty decent. Although the banana adds banana flavor (obviously), I'm not sure that I wouldn't enjoy the taste more without it. Maybe I should've let the banana overripen. I can't chime in on the satiety yet but I ate two so it should hold me over for a bit. These are only the second protein bars I've made so I'm going to try a different recipe after this, but thanks for the recipe. I may come back to it.