Oatmeal Bars—A Nature Valley copycat! Soft-baked, thick, and chewy with peanut butter flavor and peanut butter chips.
Try other gluten-free treats: Gluten-Free Pumpkin Cake, Healthy Chocolate Cookies, or Blueberry Oatmeal Bars.
The Best Oatmeal Bars
On a recent road trip, the kids tried Nature Valley’s® Peanut Butter Oatmeal Squares and loved how soft they were. The ingredients weren’t my favorite, so after getting home, I made a homemade version.
These homemade oatmeal bars are soft, chewy, and taste like peanut butter cookies mixed with oatmeal. Made with simple ingredients like honey, peanut butter, oats, and oat flour. Peanut butter chips add sweetness, but dark chocolate works as a swap.
Oatmeal Bars Ingredients
- Peanut Butter: Use no-stir peanut butter for the best texture.
- Honey & Brown Sugar: Warm the honey a little so it mixes easier.
- Egg & Vanilla: Help hold the bars together and add flavor.
- Baking Soda & Salt: A little extra salt makes the peanut butter stand out more.
- Oats & Oat Flour: Blend oats into flour first, then measure for the right amount.
- Peanut Butter Chips: Swap with dark chocolate chips for a different flavor.
- Extra Peanut Butter (Optional): Pipe while warm for a smooth drizzle.
Quick Tip
Line the pan with parchment paper, leaving extra on the sides to lift the bars out easily. Without it, the oatmeal bars will stick and be hard to remove.
How To Make Oatmeal Bars
- Prep pan: Lightly grease the pan so the paper sticks in place.
- Mix ingredients: Don’t overmix—too much mixing makes the bars dense.
- Add peanut butter chips: Save some to sprinkle on top before baking.
- Bake: The center may look soft but will firm up as it cools.
- Cool completely: Chill in the fridge for 15 mins to make slicing easier.
- (Optional) Add peanut butter drizzle: Cut a small corner off a plastic bag for an easy drizzle.
Storage
Store leftover oatmeal bars in an airtight container at room temp for 2 days or in the fridge for up to a week.
For longer storage, freeze them in a sealed container for up to 3 months.
More Easy Snack Recipes
- Yogurt Bowl with lots of ideas
- No-Bake Energy Bites protein-packed
- Peanut Butter Granola with chocolate chips
- Fruit Salsa with cinnamon sugar chips
- Soft and chewy No-Bake Granola Bars
Oatmeal Bars
Equipment
- Baking pan 8 x 8-inch
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1/4 cup light brown sugar lightly packed
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup old-fashioned oats
- 1/2 cup oat flour see note 2
- 1 cup peanut butter chips
- 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Line an 8×8-inch pan with parchment paper, leaving an overhang for easy removal, and set aside.
- Combine all the ingredients except the peanut butter chips in a large bowl. Beat with a hand mixer until smooth. Add in the peanut butter chips and fold with a spatula to combine.
- Transfer batter to the prepared pan and smooth into an even layer. Bake for 18–22 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. They may look a bit underdone or gooey in the center, but as long as they don’t jiggle at all, they are done. These bars continue to set up and firm as they cool.
- Remove bars from the oven and let cool completely in the pan. Use the parchment paper overhang to pull out the bars and cut into 12 squares with a sharp knife.
- Optional: (This is for peanut butter fanatics!) Once bars are cut into squares, place 1/4 cup of peanut butter in a small resealable bag. Cut off a tiny corner tip of the bag and pipe the peanut butter on the top of the bars.
Video
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I don’t usually write reviews for recipes, but these are so good I just have to! These are absolutely delicious! The only changes I made was halving the honey and doubling the brown sugar (because I’m a college student and honey is expensive haha), and using all purpose flour instead of oat flour and they still turned out great! I added walnuts, raisins and chocolate chips as well, and they add the perfect texture and taste!! I was looking for an alternative snack to store bought granola bars, and these definitely do the trick!!
I am so thrilled to hear this! Thanks so much for your comment Sydni!
I noticed most of these reviews were from people who didn’t seem to have made the recipe! I did make it, and I really enjoyed it. They are different than the Nature Valley bars, but much more wholesome and still delicious. I baked mine for probably 40 minutes because they continued to look really underdone to me, but they turned out just fine.
I am so thrilled to hear this! Thanks so much Kinsey! 🙂
Hi Chelsea
Can you make thes bars in muffin pan for part of school lunch?
Thank you Corry
Umm… yum! These are so good! They really do taste like the Nature Valley bars! I didn’t have peanut butter chips, and didn’t want to add chocolate to it as I was making these to eat for breakfast so I left them out. Made no other changes. Still amazing!
YAY! So happy to hear this! Thanks so much Heather! 🙂
These are so good!!! I make them on repeat. I’ve been subbing the PB with sun butter so my kids can take them to school. And we use chocolate chips instead of PB. I omit the added brown sugar and just use the honey, and they are plenty sweet. Thanks so much for such a great recipe!
So thrilled to hear this! Thanks so much Cierra! 🙂
Would maple syrup work in place of honey?
I’ve been trying to eat less processed foods, and my daily granola bar (specifically Nature Valley Soft Baked Oatmeal Squares) clearly needed to go. This one hits the spot! I’ve made it three times now and it’s turned out perfectly soft every time. I’ve landed on a couple mods to make it match my taste: reduce the amount of honey by about half, add a bit extra brown sugar and salt, add flaky salt on top, syrup instead of vanilla, skip peanut butter chips and drizzle, bake for 15 minutes. An easy thing to do to reduce the amount of processed foods in my diet!
I am so thrilled to hear this! Thanks so much Jen! 🙂
I stumbled across these looking for a “lactation” cookie or bar recipe post partum (which is mostly just oats in recipes haha). These are so unreal delicious I have probably made 10 times already since June – Beau e my husband and son can’t keep their hands off of them. I sub coconut sugar for brown sugar and dark chocolate chips for PB chips and add a little chia seeds and flax meal to make a little healthier – so so yummy!
I am so thrilled to hear this! Thanks Tosha! 🙂