Raspberry Oatmeal Bars are pretty much amazing.
I’m on a mission to create new healthy snack recipes so that my boys will have some great options on hand. But here’s what happened after I made these Raspberry Oatmeal Bars: I dug into them while I was in the kitchen by myself and loved them so much that I forgot to call in the kids. Then when I realized I was like, “Eh, the kids can have a piece of cheese.” And then I kept eating the bars. Great mom moment, huh? :)
This may be one of the best snack recipes ever, hands down. The kids thought so too, once I remembered to share.
Raspberry Oatmeal Bars
- 1½ cups whole wheat flour
- 1½ cups rolled oats
- ½ cup sucanat
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- 1 cup melted butter
- ½ cup raspberry jam (100% fruit)
- Mix together flour, oats, sucanat, baking powder, and salt.
- Stir in melted butter until the mixture resembles crumbs.
- Press half of the mixture into an 8x8 inch baking pan.
- Spread jam over the top.
- Sprinkle remaining oat mixture on top of the jam layer, pressing down to cover.
- Bake in a 350° oven for 30 minutes or until lightly browned.
You can definitely change these up by using a different variety of jelly or jam. I think apricot would be awesome in these, or strawberry, or peach…
If they last long enough, you can freeze them: Allow them to cool completely, then wrap individually for a quick grab and go snack. Place individually wrapped bars in a large freezer bag and store in the freezer for up to two months.
Here are some pictures to show more specifically how to put these bars together. They are really so easy!
First, mix together the dry ingredients. Then pour in the melted butter.
Stir until the mixture resembles buttery crumbs.
Press half of the crumbs into an 8×8 inch baking dish.
Spread the jam over the first layer of oat mixture. Spoon the remaining oat mixture over the jam and press down to cover.
Bake in a 350° oven for about 30 minutes. Cut them while they are warm, or allow them to cool first.
Try to remember to share them with others.
Not only will I be making these frequently for snacks in the future, I think they will be wonderful for breakfast. And I’ll even try to remember to serve them to my children. ;)
These look wonderful! I will most definitely need to try them. I’m glad there are people out there who know how to try out recipes on their own. :)
My son LOVES cereal bars and eats at least one every day, and I think this would be an awesome alternative. You said they can be frozen for longer-term storage, but about how long would they last otherwise and would you store them in the fridge or at room-temp?
I’d store them in the fridge for probably about a week. :)
Perfect! Was hoping I could make a batch on the weekend and serve them all week, now we’ll just have to see if we can stop ourselves from eating them all the first day!
We make something like this on a very regular basis at our house. But sometimes we don’t want to use up our jam. So instead I thaw some fruit from the freezer and drain it well. Mash, sprinkle with 2 Tbsp wheat flour, and mix with a little sweetener of choice. It makes a simple and quick fruit filling.
Great idea! I’ll try that because I have raspberries in the fridge I’d like to use.
Tried this tonight with frozen blackberries and it is amazing. Thanks for the tip!
Exactly how much is a half a sea salt? :)
Hahaha, it’s very, very enormous! Thanks for pointing that out. Got ‘er fixed. :P
That jam looks so good! What brand do you use? I’ve been looking for some that is all fruit but still has enough of the original fruit it(instead of just tasting like apple juice) Can’t wait to try these bars! Thanks!
Smuckers has spreadable fruit. It is 100 percent fruit. They also have organic and an all natural non-organic and a non-organic natural fruit jam now as well. It is reasonable in price and the only ingredients are the fruit, sugar, pectin, and citric acid. My local Publix has all of these available.
Laura,these look great. You are lucky that you stayed under the radar as long as you did. lol. Here it would of been hearing the baking dishes coming out and then whatcha making? The noses work very well also. I am going to try and make these this weekend. Thanks.
Jean
I first received this recipe the day before we were to be leaving for a weekend family camping trip. We intended to make muffins (or something like that) for our Sunday morning breakfast, so as not to have to cook while packing up. When I opened my email the original recipe was shining like a beacon! My daughter and I decided this was what we wanted to make for our to go breakfast. We decided we wanted to add some fruit or something to it. We only had apples so we cored them and sliced them thinly and put half of the oatmeal mixture in the pan made a layer of apples, sprinkled over some cinnamon and brown sugar and topped with the rest of the oatmeal mixture. They were amazing hot out of the oven and four days later!! We have since used homemade peach preserves in them and homemade triple berry preserves. They are just yummy. Oh and by the way they are freeze able in individual servings and make a great on the go breakfast!!! Yippie yippie!!! Thank you for this great recipe!!! Oh and next I’m going to try them with pumpkin inside!!
I would love to gear how the recipe works with pumpkin!
I have made a version of this for several years. We tend to get homemade jams and jellies as gifts over the holidays and if they are a flavor that doesn’t get eaten fast….I use it in this recipe instead and it always gets eaten up in a snap. Great use for those jams/jellies that you simply made too much of. Will have to try the apples like you did next time.
Thank you for this! Been wanting a recipe like this for us. I will try it with strawberry jam this weekend.
Oh My!!! I am going to make these now! And so easy too! I’ve always loved raspberry bars but didn’t have any idea how to make them. Thank you! (Can you tell I’m excited about this one? I tend to use too many !!! when I’m excited about something.)
My mom used to make these with homemade raspberry jam growing up, though with full sugar jam, they were definitely more dessert then snack. I now make a similar recipe called fruit filled oatmeal bars. The recipe has the butter cut in, so it has a shortbread like crust, yum! However, it calls for an all fruit apple filling which would probably work equally well in your bar recipe.
Peel core and finely chop 2 medium apples(about 10 oz)(I prefer a sweet apple like golden delicious). In a medium saucepan combine apples, 2 tablespoons water, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon and a dash of ground cloves. bring apple mixture to boiling, reduce heat. Simmer covered, for 8 to 10 minutes or till apples are tender. (I make a batch and a half)
Thanks for this Laura… You cured my baking blues!!! We are
Gluten free, and even though I have GF flour mix all ready in my cupboard, I have pouted and feared and avoided baking for 3 months now!! Well I woke up, read this post, ad headed into the kitchen and made these bars first thing. (Subbed out my GF flour mix for your whole wear- turned out delicious!) Not only that- I turned the ugly brown bananas on my counter into a scrumptious loaf of gf banana bread while I was at it… :-) thanks so much for the great and easy recipe:-)
These look so yummy. I think peach and strawberry would be awesome too. Got to do these.
THANKS!!! BLESSINGS!!
I have been anxiously awaiting this recipe. Thanks!
These look yummy! Is there any easy way to print the recipe without the pictures?
I know it’s been awhile since you commented, but when you are in the printer friendly box click on anything you want to delete :)
Thank you! I didn’t know that you could do that :)
What could I sub for the wheat to make it gluten free?
You could try almond flour. :)
Sooo Yum Laura! Thanks for sharing. As I read your post and looked at your pictures I realized that anything with granola is absolutely my favorite of all foods, especially baked. It brings so many memories of ladies that are my mentors and angels.
These are very similar to a bar my great aunt gave my mom many, many years ago. She called them Matrimonial Bars (we think because of the “marriage” between the oats and the dates used!) My sister and I made the recipe easier (for us at the time when we were younger) by using jam as the filling, but the original recipe used 3 C chopped dates, 1/4 C sugar, and 1 1/2 C water. Cook over med-low heat, stirring constantly until dates softened and thickened. A couple years ago I tried the dates–will never go back to jam–it is soooooo much better. These are wonderful the first day and even better after sitting the night in the refrigerator the next day (if you can get them to last that long). However I do have to say that warm out of the oven with ice cream is about the best. This is my go to recipe for potlucks and picnics–a favorite just about every time.
Oh the memories for me Rhoda! Matrimonial (Bars) Cake was my grandmothers wedding cake during the depression. She prepared this and made her wedding dress (navy blue with white collar and while cuffs. She reproduce the dress for her 50th wedding anniversary. She often served the cake for company until she became to frail in her late 80’s.
These are also great great great with Apricot preserves (100%)
I made these today with strawberry jam, and they are sooooo good! Thanks. :)
It seems like 1 cup of butter is a lot of butter! Can I sub it for olive oil or coconut oil?
That’s what makes these so good! :) Yes, I believe subbing it would be fine, although I haven’t tried it myself. I’d go with coconut oil.
Hi! I can’t wait to make these! Just a quick comment – when I hit the “printer friendly” version to print it out, it did not seem very printer friendly… I got all the photos of all the “how to do this”, when what I thought I would have gotten was just the first page of ingredients and directions. My kids will color on the backsides of my extra pages but I thought I would just comment on this in case the link was not right or something. Thanks!
Grr, Print Friendly seems to only be working in Internet Explorer, not in other browsers. Not sure why??
I’m replying to myself, and just wanted to comment that I made these
yesterday but used brown sugar instead of the sucanat
(I am unfamiliar with that and while I assumed
it was a sugar type or sugar substitute, I did not see it at my co-op the
other day). It turned out delicious, but I think I would use less sugar
the next time I make it. It was kind of crumbly for me until today, after
it was refriged and set up a bit more. DELICIOUS! and I too found myself
snacking on it all day long! Thanks!
oops, also meant to add that I doubled the batch and put it in a 9×13.
I made these this morning. They are yummy!!! I can see how you “forgot” to share with your boys! : )
Do you mean a half a jar of jam, or a half a cup? I am making this recipe right now and a half a cup spread on only a very thin layer and in your pictures it looks like you used a lot more than just a half a cup. I am thinking one cup would be much better!
I really just used a half cup, but you can definitely add more if you prefer.
I changed up the recipe a bit because my 14 year old daughter loves anything with chocolate and peanut butter. I put homemade peanut butter as the filling instead of jam and chocolate chips on top.The result was incredible, but crumbly. Any ideas on how to fix that? Maybe half butter and half coconut oil?
Hmm, yes you can try the butter/coconut oil combo. Not sure why yours turned out crumbly. I like the choc/pb idea!
I made the Raspberry bars, they where wonderful. I did use 1/2 coconut oil and 1/2 butter. I’m going to make them again this weekend. Hmmm what about chocolate in the middle?
I have read that substituting brown sugar for sucanant will cause your baked goods to be more moist, and substituting white sugar for sucanant will make your baked goods drier. Maybe that has something to do with the crumbly mixture some people are experiencing?
Thanks for the recipe! My little ones are looking forward to helping me bake these today.
I absolutely loved this recipe, only I substituted peanut butter for the jam and added chocolate chips (because everything is better with chocolate at my house!). I wanted the extra protein for my three starving teenagers who can’t seem to get enough to eat each day. Next time I think I will try peanut butter and jelly bars. Yummy! Thanks for the recipe.
Thanks Laura,
The raspberry oat bars sound delicious…..
I love any kind of oat bars, so will try different flavor jams.
Can self-rising flour be used in this recipe ?
That should work out fine.
I grew up eating DATE bars made like these {without whole wheat flour sort of ingredients of course}. Then I met my hubby and learned his mom makes CHERRY bars that are YUMMY-licious too!
Basically using any fruit in a pie filling or jam consistency seems to be a winner!
Could I use pumpkin pie filling
Yes, I believe that would work!
I have made these several times now – rasberry and blueberry. They are delicious!
Made these for breakfast today and they were delicious! (Now if I can just stay away from them until lunchtime…)
Made these this weekend with homemade strawberry jam from our garden :) Mine turned out crumbly on the top as well. I did notice I should’ve pressed more of the mixture onto the bottom of the pan before adding the jam, but otherwise followed the recipe. There was enough topping on top that it didn’t matter if some crumbled off…there was still a good bit left. Going to try these again putting more of the mixture on the bottom and using some pumpkin butter I have in the fridge :)
Have any of you ever used steel cut oats in any of your recipes? If so, is there anything extra you have to do to use them? Thanks!
I’ve never used them in a recipe, only to make a yummy breakfast cereal!
just made these tonight, but subbed half the butter for cream cheese to use up a block I’d started for a different recipe. absolutely delicious!! I had previously tried a different recipe that was similar, but these were SO much better! thanks so much!
Looking forward to trying this recipe! Is it possible to sub honey or maple syrup for the sucanat? Not sure if it would change it without having to adjust a bunch of other ingredients.
That would work fine. You shouldn’t need to switch anything else up.
These look SOOO good. Question– do you grease the pan? I’m assuming not, since A) there’s so much butter in the “crust,” heehee, and B) the instructions don’t mention it?
Thanks!!
No need to grease. Oh yeah, it’s definitely got plenty of butter! :)
These sound wonderful! I think I am going to try these only using almond meal flour instead of the whole wheat. Thank you for sharing!
I would love to make these but have a gluten allergy. I noticed someone else commented about that but it was never answered, can you sub almond and flax for the whole wheat?? If so would it be equal parts, and has someone tried it? Thanks Laura for all the wonderful meals and recipes. I use tons of them with my family. Just getting used to going gf cause of tummy problems.
You can substitute most kinds of gf flours for this. It should turn out well. :)
Made a “fig newton” version with some homemade fig preserves!! Very good! Thank you for sharing your recipe!
How many servings do you get? When I calculated it out to 16 servings they are a hefty 235 calories each.
I may have already commented before, but I’m looking up the recipe to make at another house where I don’t have my recipe card. This is your friendly reminder that THESE ARE AMAZING!!!
Has it really been year since you posted this and I am just getting around to try it??? Where did this year go?! Anyway, just wanted to share that I made this with my homemade cranberry/orange sauce leftover from thanksgiving…….delicious!!! Thank you, I have a very happy hubby……his new favorite treat!
Why did I wait so long to make this recipe?!? These are dee-lish!I only had blackberry jam, and that was so amazing that now I’m going to buy raspberry jam to make another batch. Maybe a double batch. Thanks so much for all your amazing ideas – keep ’em coming.
WOW! I made these with 100% fruit Red Raspberry Jam, for dessert last night. My husband loved them so much that he said he would forget all of the things that he was ever upset with me about!!! ; ) Guess I better make them more often!
Love your recipes! I make the breakfast cake muffins every week. :-) I was going to try to make the raspberry bars but realize I only have 1/2 a cup of butter. What can I substitute that will not change the taste? (I don’t have any coconut oil either.) Thank you!
I’m stumped because I was going to suggest coconut oil. Palm shortening if you have it?
I made these yesterday and they turned out really yummy but crumbly. I used half butter and half palm shortening but I’m wondering if I should use less next time? I guesss I shouldn’t even be commenting since I didn’t make the recipe exactly as it is stated using the whole cup of butter. I know I don’t appreciate reading reviews which say that something didn’t turn out when they didn’t follow the recipe exactly. Sorry. I was running low on butter and didn’t want to use a whole cup. Maybe I’ll try these again another time.
I think all butter would make these less crumbly, but even with full butter, they are still a little bit messy to eat. WORTH IT though, because they are so tasty, but I make everyone (including myself) use a plate and lean over the table. :) :)
I used homemade apple butter in the middle. These were tasty!
Laura! Holy smoke. I have been making your oatmeal breakfast bars for years and only this morning did I decide to give these bars a whirl. I used blackberry jam and they came out so good. My family loved them. Thank you so much!