Everyone goes bananas over these no-bake chunky monkey granola bars loaded with chocolate, peanut butter and bananas!
We’re moving to a new house soon and with that comes new stomping grounds for grocery shopping and restaurant hopping. I love the location where we live now because we’re less than a 10 minute walk or just a 2 minute drive from two of my favorite grocery stores: Central Market and Whole Foods. We are at one or both of these stores almost every single day.
I’ve always said though that I wished we had a Trader Joe’s just a little closer. The closest Trader Joe’s to where we live now is about a 15 minute drive away. I still make it there once a week or every other week, but how nice it would be to bop in their more regularly if one was a little closer. Well, my dream of being able to walk to TJ’s is about to come true. Our new house is about a 10 minute walk or 3 minute drive from Trader Joe’s and we couldn’t be more excited.
It’s going to be dangerous (because I will buy ALL the things!) and glorious (because all the things are AMAZING!). Speaking of amazingness at Trader Joe’s, here are some of our faves…
We enjoy them by themselves or combine them to make these amazingly delicious (and slightly addicting!) No-Bake Chunky Monkey Granola Bars…
Mmmm…mmmm! Let me walk you through the ingredients that make these granola bars so easy and so yummy!
Just the Clusters Chocolate Almond Granola is chunky, crunchy, chocolate-y, nutty goodness. It’s great with milk in a bowl as well as snacking by the handfuls to satisfy those morning, afternoon or nightly chocolate cravings. 😉 And obviously our favorite granola for these granola bars! If you don’t live near or shop at Trader Joe’s, no worries. Any chocolate granola will do. 🙂
You can’t call them chunky monkey granola bars if they don’t have a lot of chunk to them. So we’ve got chunk from the granola and chunk from the chocolate chunks. CHUNKY! CHUNKY! These semi-sweet chocolate chunks taste more like dark chocolate to me, which I love! Again, use any chocolate chunks you can find or chop your favorite chocolate bar into chunks.
Next comes the bananas! Both fresh bananas and dried banana chips give these granola bars plenty of banana taste and texture all throughout.
And last, but certainly not least, comes the peanut butter! You can use creamy or crunchy, but I prefer crunchy for these bars because it adds another recognizable level of crunchiness.
Just 5 ingredients! That’s all it takes to make these chewy, crunchy, chunky, chocolate-y, bursting with banana and peanut butter flavor granola bars…
No baking necessary. Just mix, press, and let set.
We just can’t get enough of these bars. The chocolate/peanut butter/banana flavor combo will have you going “ooh ooh, aah aah!” at first bite.
Enjoy,
- 5 cups chocolate granola cereal (I use Trader Joe's Just the Clusters Chocolate Almond Granola)
- 1 cup crunchy peanut butter
- 1 cup mashed banana (about 2 large bananas)
- ½ cup chocolate chunks (I use Trader Joe's semi-sweet chocolate chunks)
- ½ cup dried banana chips
- Line a 9 x 13-inch baking dish with parchment paper and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside.
- Add all ingredients to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until well combined.
- Press mixture evenly into prepared dish. Press additional chocolate chunks and banana chips into the top of the granola bars, if desired.
- Cover with plastic wrap and place bars in the refrigerator for at least an hour before lifting from the baking dish (with the sides of the parchment paper) and cutting into bars.
Isabelle Aguirre says
May 24, 2017 at 6:38 pmWhat an amazing recipe. Thank you for posting it! Can’t wait to try it out, I bet it’s delicious =)