Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Applesauce Bars made with 6 wholesome ingredients for a health-conscious treat. Make them for easy grab-and-go snacks to enjoy throughout the week!
One of the most popular recipes on my site is my 4-Ingredient Banana Oatmeal Bars. Have you made them??
While I’ve received a great deal of feedback from readers who make this recipe on a weekly basis, I have also been asked many times for a replacement for bananas.
For those who have a banana allergy or simply don’t enjoy the flavor of bananas, I’m here with an equally delicious and easy recipe using unsweetened applesauce instead of bananas.
This version is also lower in fat as I use less almond butter. I find that the richness goes down a bit but the bars are still delicious without as much fat.
The end result is a chewy bar with pockets of melted chocolate and loads of oatty flavor.
Healthy enough to enjoy with breakfast, yet tasty enough to have for dessert, this healthy dessert bar recipe is perfect for those who relish less sweet treats.
I’m willing to bet this recipe will turn into a household staple with just as much assertiveness as the banana version!
The best part is this easy recipe requires zero baking experience and no fancy maneuvers.
Let’s discuss the simple ingredients for these easy oatmeal applesauce bars.
Ingredients for Applesauce Bars:
Rolled Oats or Quick Oats: Used as the base for the bars instead of all purpose flour, we need oats! Any kind of oats except for steel cut oats will work, including rolled oats, quick oats, instant oats, or old fashioned oats.
For gluten-free applesauce bars, be sure to use certified gluten-free oats. I use gluten-free sprouted oats.
Unsweetened Applesauce: Used for moisture and a little natural sweetness, unsweetened applesauce blends with the oats to make a chewy bar texture.
You can use homemade cinnamon applesauce or store-bought applesauce. This is the perfect use for extra jars of homemade applesauce!
Unsweetened Almond Butter: While the recipe doesn’t necessarily need added fat, healthy fats like almond butter or peanut butter bring more flavor and richness to the bars.
Pure Maple Syrup: Used to add some sweetness to the bars, we need a little sweetener like pure maple syrup. You can adjust the amount of sweetener depending on your personal taste.
I keep it relatively low and use 2-3 tablespoons because the chocolate chips add a decent amount of sugar. Adding 1 to 5 tablespoons of brown sugar is what I would recommend for sweeter bars.
Chocolate Chips: Bringing the fun, chocolate chips are the life of the party here. Without them, the bars will taste fairly dull (yet still tasty in my opinion), but with them, we’re looking at a chocolate goo fest.
To keep the bars lower in added sugar, use sugar-free chocolate chips.
Sea Salt and Ground Cinnamon: Salt is a flavor enhancer and brings out the sweetness and richness of baked goods so don’t skip it! Ground cinnamon brings a hint of warm flavor, which I love. Swap out the cinnamon for pumpkin pie spice of apple pie spice if you’d like.
Recipe Customizations:
- If you try to limit your fat intake, decrease the amount of almond butter to 3 tablespoons.
- Enjoy a nutty crunch? Add ½ to ⅔ cup walnuts or pecans.
- Add 1 tablespoon of ground flax seed, chia seeds, or hemp seeds for some omega-3 fatty acids.
- If you have vanilla extract on hand, add 1 teaspoon.
- Enjoy dried fruit? Add ½ cup to ⅔ cup of raisins, dried cranberries, or dried blueberries in addition to or in lieu of the chocolate chips.
- For more apple flavor, add 1 cup of finely chopped apple to the oatmeal mixture.
- For a protein infusion, add ⅓ cup of your favorite protein powder and an extra ⅓ cup of applesauce. You can also add ⅓ cup of egg whites for a protein source, in which case you won’t need to add more applesauce.
- Make pumpkin bars by swapping the applesauce for canned pureed pumpkin. If you go this route, I recommend adding 1/3 cup of brown sugar.
- Add 1 to 2 teaspoons of pumpkin spice for just the right amount of spice.
Now that we’ve covered the healthy ingredients and some potential adaptations, let’s bake some applesauce bars!
How to Make Chocolate Chip Applesauce Bars:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper.
Add all of the ingredients except for the chocolate chips to a food processor (oats, applesauce, pure maple syrup, almond butter, ground cinnamon, and sea salt).
Note: if you don’t own a food processor, you can add all of the wet ingredients and dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl and mix by hand or with an electric mixer.
Blend until all of the ingredients are combined and a thick mixture forms. It’s perfectly fine if the mixture is grainy and not smooth – this is normal.
Mix in the chocolate chips until they are well distributed throughout the applesauce mixture.
Transfer the applesauce bar mixture into the prepared baking dish and spread it into an even layer. If you’d like, press extra chocolate chips into the top of the dough.
Bake on the center rack of the preheated oven for 18 to 25 minutes, or until the bars are slightly golden brown around the edges (I do 10 minutes).
Allow the bars to cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing. The longer you wait to slice the bars, the cleaner they will slice. So if you are able to wait until they are room temperature before slicing into them, the slices will come out with a perfect edge.
Store bars in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. You can also store bars in a large zip lock bag in the freezer for up to 3 months.
To reheat the bars from frozen, place one on a plate and microwave for 30 to 60 seconds, or until warm.
For a more decadent treat, spread cream cheese frosting, apple butter, peanut butter or almond butter over the bars just before consuming. You can also make a powdered sugar glaze by combining 1 cup of powdered sugar with 2 tablespoons of water.
The next time you’re craving a sweet treat without a lot of added sugar, whip up these quick and easy oatmeal applesauce spice bars!
I love the idea of whipping up a batch of these bars on a weekly basis to have them on hand whenever the sweet tooth strikes.
They are just the perfect treat with great flavor and my favorite part is you can absolutely make them your own by trying different add-ins.
While traditional old fashioned applesauce bars tend to be high in fat and sugar, I love that these delicious bars fall on the more health-conscious end of the sweets spectrum so that you don’t have to wait for special occasions to enjoy them.
For those that follow a lower calorie diet or keep tabs on their macros, easy applesauce recipes like this are magic!
The nutrient information is in the recipe card below, showing the full nutrition facts breakdown for your daily values of macronutrients.
If you enjoy healthy recipes like these applesauce oatmeal snack bars, also try out some of these bangers.
More Healthy Treats:
- 5-Ingredient Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Applesauce Bread
- Strawberry Banana Oatmeal Muffin Cups
- Almond Flour Raspberry Cake
- Applesauce Oatmeal Cookies
Let’s make oatmeal applesauce bars the latest and greatest trend. 😉
Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Applesauce Bars
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 cups quick oats
- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 3 Tbsp pure maple syrup*
- 5 Tbsp unsweetened almond butter
- 1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ¾ tsp sea salt
- ⅔ cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper.
- Add all of the ingredients except for the chocolate chips to a food processor (oats, applesauce, pure maple syrup, almond butter, ground cinnamon, and sea salt). Note: if you don’t own a food processor, you can add all of the wet ingredients and dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl and mix by hand or with an electric mixer.
- Blend until all of the ingredients are combined and a thick mixture forms. It’s perfectly fine if the mixture is grainy and not smooth – this is normal.
- Mix in the chocolate chips until they are well distributed throughout the applesauce mixture.
- Transfer the applesauce bar mixture into the prepared baking dish and spread it into an even layer. If you’d like, press extra chocolate chips into the top of the dough.
- Bake on the center rack of the preheated oven for 18 to 25 minutes, or until the bars are slightly golden brown around the edges (I do 10 minutes).
- Allow the bars to cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing. The longer you wait to slice the bars, the cleaner they will slice. So if you are able to wait until they are room temperature before slicing into them, the slices will come out with a perfect edge.
Notes
Nutrition
This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission off items you purchase at no additional cost to you.
I just realized I have not commented before, for which I apologize, but I am deeply thankful i found your recipe! One day I was scrolling through the articles that Google figured I would like. Most of them I was not interested in, but then yours came up and the name and pic intrigued me. I am trying to get better about eating healthier and reading about all the substitutions/additions, etc was neat.
This page has been bookmarked on multiple devices and we have now made the recipe 3 times 😀
It is easy enough that I was even able to make it with my grandmother who is dealing with more memory issues and such.
The first time we used avocado in place of the almond butter (as I have a nut intolerance and we had no sun butter in the house). It worked rather well overall. Plus I added dried raspberries to one of the 2 that we made that day. Yum!
The second and third times I went wild with the additions 😀 And doubling! Instead of doing pumpkin or applesauce alone, I combined them half and half, for the literal fun of it, but also the health benefits they could offer. I added the egg whites which as a bonus made it easier to stir too, since it was more moisture. I added 2 tablespoons of purple sweet potato flour and used sun butter (the minimum amount) instead of almond butter. I love that there are so many healthy elements in it, but that the taste/smell/texture is not overwhelming. 😀 My mom and sibs also really enjoy it too, which makes the doubling very convenient.
I haven’t tried it with a frosting or whatever, partly because it is lovely alone but one of these days I may cave and do it! Since it sounds it would be very yummy!
My only minor disappointment is that when I adjust the number of servings that the dish size and cook time instructions don’t change with it. I ended up using a dish that was I think 10×15? And had it in for close to half an hour (sharing in case it helps someone else who sees this and tries doubling too!)
On behalf of my mom and sibs, we are all very thankful to you for sharing this recipe in such an easy to follow and modify, recipe! 😀 Very well wishes to you!
Thanks so much for the stellar review, Renee! I’m thrilled you and your family enjoyed the recipe with your changes – I’ll have to try some of them, myself! I appreciate you swinging back around to share your feedback! 🙂
I used brown sugar instead of molasses. I followed the directions and ended up baking for almost 30 minutes and it still came out mushy. I’m going to attempt it again and see if it comes out better. Overall, it tastes great, I didn’t get bars like I hoped.
Hi Tiffany! The bars are supposed to be soft (some may say, mushy). Are you looking for a cookie-like consistency? If so, I think the recipe would need a lot more tweaking, as it’s supposed to be pretty soft. Hope this helps! xo
Read to the end, please….I wanted to try this healthier recipe to cut down on butter, flour and sugar. I made this exactly according to the recipe and added about 1/2 cup of walnuts. Baked for 25 minutes total. First bite was awful. I’m just not a big fan of oatmeal in general and you kind of expect a little more sweetness. I hate waste so I did not stop there. Second bite was better. After the third bite, I was hooked. I can honestly say this is now one of my favorite desserts. It definitely satisfies the sweet tooth. Seriously give it a chance. Don’t stop at first or second bite. I guarantee you won’t regret it!
LOL, I love this thorough review, Cynthia 🙂 I find a similar experience with lower sugar treats – at first if you’re expecting something very sweet you’re let down but as you grow accustomed to it, the sweetness level is just fine for an enjoyable experience. I appreciate you sharing such a glowing review! I also add more sweetener on the occasions I want something that tastes more decadent, and it works out great! Happy baking! xo
@Julia, thanks for sharing this recipe! I really meant it when I said it is now one of my favorites, and it is easy to put together too! Take care!
You too, Cynthia! Thank you! xo
Hi! There is no applesauce listed in the ingredients for this recipe. Thanks!
@GINA, Sorry! It’s not in bold and I didn’t see it. Getting too old for the Internet:D
LOL, no worries, Gina! It happens 🙂