Easy Healthy School Snack Attack Ideas – Honey Oat Bars
It’s back to school and kinder for the kids this week. That means it’s up to my husband and I to once again start filling lunch boxes with yummy lunches and easy healthy snacks.
There are limited times for children to eat during the day, especially at school. My kids prefer to play with friends instead of eating. So the snacks need to be nutritious, tasty, quick and easy to prepare. Having small regular meals and snacks is better than skipping meals and “bingeing” when hungry.
Some of my kids favorites are:
- Fresh or canned fruit – fruit kebabs, chopped fruit in a tub or fruit salad
- Dips with vegetable sticks like celery, carrot, cucumber
- Slice of Raisin toast or bread, pikelets, pancakes or scones with a little margarine or fruit spread
- Lightly spread muffins and crumpets
- Rice cakes topped reduced-fat cream cheese, vegemite or sliced banana
- Small pita bread or wraps (spread thinly with cheese spread or peanut butter, grated carrot, sprouts and roll up to serve).
- Wholemeal crackers with a slice of low fat cheese
- Mini Wheats breakfast cereal
- Popcorn with a few dried apricots or sultanas
- Handful of home made pita chips (cut pita bread into triangles, sprinkle with parmesan cheese and bake 180ºC for 15 minutes until crisp).
- Celery sticks with a thin spread of peanut butter topped with sultanas.
- Slice of low fat cheese with carrot and celery sticks.
- Tub of low fat fruit yoghurt (I freeze the yoghurt the night before when it’s warmer)
- Jelly and fruit
- Low fat cheese cubes or sticks.
One of Lachlan & Amber’s favourite snacks to eat and make is Honey Oat bars. The ingredients for Honey Oat Bars are:
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1 cup sultanas
- 1/2 cup wholemeal self raising flour
- 1/4 cup raw sugar
- 1/2 cup coconut
- 150g butter
- 1 tablespoon honey
1. Combine oats, sultanas, sifted flour, sugar and coconut in to a bowl.
2. Melt butter and honey. Then mix the melted mix into the dry ingredients.
3. Press over base of a greased 28cm x 18cm tin. Bake in moderate oven for 20 minutes or until golden.
4. Remove the slice from oven. Cool for a few minutes in the tin. Remove the slice from the tin on to a chopping board and leave to cool. When the slice is cold cut into bars.
This recipe makes about 36 slices. Depending of course how big you cut the slices. In the past I’ve added chopped dried apricots and sunflower seeds instead of the sultanas and it was delicious.
What healthy snacks are you filling your kid’s lunchboxes with this term?
I love the simplicity of this recipe, I’m off to Coles now to pick up the ingredients and have them baked tonight ready for the lunch boxes tomorrow.
Let me know how you go Katrina. I find the greatest test for snacks is whether they are still in the lunch box after school.
It says 1/2 wholemeal SR flour and also 1/2 coconut. I assume this refers to 1/2 CUP?
Thanks Jo. Yes is it 1/2 cup for each. I hope you enjoy making the bars. Let me know how you go.
Hi Merryn,
These sound great, I’am going to make them on the weekend. Just one questions though, how long do they keep for? I’ll have them in an air tight container !!
Cheers
Sue
Hi Sue,
That is a good question. Mine hardly ever last for longer than a week… they are too delicious and magically disappear. Although I once made a double mixture because we were camping with a couple of other families and I wanted to share them around. That batch did manage to last fine for about 2 weeks in an air tight container.
Let me know how you go.
Cheers,
Merryn
I have made this recipe for a long time and it is also really good if you use a food processor and put all the ingredients in and pulse them a couple of times before adding the butter and honey. Makes a different texture meusli bar
This recipe is an oldie but a goodie. My Nan used to make it for me and by brother & sister when we were kids.
Next time I make it I’m going to give your suggestion of grinding the dry ingredients in the food processor a go. Thanks for the tip!
Hi – I like the sound of this recipe but there seems to be an awful lot of butter in it. Is there something you could substitute for some of it?
Hi Deb, This recipe is the original recipe. I’ve tried to reduce the amount of butter by about 60 – 50g. Then replaced the butter with some apple puree and/or mashed banana. Which worked OK.
As Sue has just suggested, you could can grind up the dry ingredients and just add enough butter for it to come together.
If you give it a go, let me know how you go.
Hi Merryn! Have you ever tried this with Gluten Free Flour… I know sometimes you have to change the quantities to get the right consistency?
Hi Gina, I haven’t tried this particular recipe with gluten free flour before. But in the past I’ve cooked muffins and other slices for my Great Aunt who has to go gluten free. She is a bit of a cook and has lots of good advice on adapting recipes for her gluten free needs. Her advice was to make slices and muffins using gluten free flour, and that they usually work fine. She sometimes adds a bit more liquid, because apparently gluten free flour can make the dish a bit dry sometimes. She also uses almond flour instead of flour in recipes.
Hi,
Just wondering if the consistency would still be okay if I left out the sultanas, as my kids, (fussy little brats they are!) don’t really like sultanas and so just wondered if it would be alright without them? I guess it would be more like a cake/slice.
Thanks, Jane.
Hi Jane,
I think it should be fine. I’d replace the sultanas with more oats. Or replace the sultanas with chopped dried apricots. Let me know whether it passes your kids taste test.
Cheers,
Merryn
At the risk of angering a certain someone in the office…
Serena cooked this slice the other day, and I tried some after work.
It’s good. It’s really good.
Its a fantastic recipe thanks so so much. I have shared it with quite a few other mummies.
please merryn more awesome recipes like this one pleeeaaasssseee! LOL
I’m glad you liked the recipe so much, Erin. And you were able to share the recipe with your friends. I’ll look forward to sharing more tasty recipes with you soon.
Hi Merryn,
I have made these pretty much every week or two since you posted them here. I have made a few changes. I have tried them with half sultanas and half dried apricots, they were nice. I now add a nut mix instead of the sultanas and it comes out really nice. From the beginning though, I found it very crumbly when it is cut, it doesn’t seem to matter if the slice is warm or cold, it simply crumbles a lot. I have added an egg to the mix before baking and this helps reduce the crumble. Thanks for a yummy snack idea.
Hi Fiona,
That’s great to hear that your family enjoys this slice as much as my family does. I haven’t tried the recipe with a nut mix. It sounds yummy. I’m going to give it try.
maybe u need a bit more butter to help it stick together im about to find this out if i put in enough as i just guessed the measurement..im pretty good at judging from years of cooking
Hi Merryn,
Very nice receipe. I was a bit short of butter and I completed with walnut oil. It worked and tasted very good. My girls just loved and the bars just vanished. Thanks a lot for sharing it.
Renata
Thanks for sharing your variation, Renata. I’ll keep that in mind the next time I don’t have enough butter in the fridge.
Just made these and added choc chips too..
That sounds delish. I bet they don’t last long and they’ll be gone before you know it. I’ll love to see a photo. You could post it on our Coles online facebook page if you’d like to share.
well like merryn mine didn’t stay together but still taste great i think next time ill put more butter in.
i think even though it didn’t stay together it would be a good sprinkle with yoghurt for breakfast…:D and maybe the next batch ill put up a photo…but not this one it doen’t look that good i want mine to be better photo wise ill make another batch tomoro.:d
Loving this recipe idea, but with back to school coming up, working mums like myself are wanting healthy lunch box bars off the shelf, that taste great while providing enough nutrition to keep our kids motivated throughout the school day. I recently found Supa Secrets Snack Bars, that are specially created for kids’ growing bodies, developing taste buds and active lifestyles. And compared to other bars they have significant lower levels of sodium and sugar. My kids just love them and now their lunch boxes always come home empty! Yipee!They are available in the health food section of selected Coles stores, or online at http://www.supasecrets.com.au