Sourdough Chocolate Protein Granola Bars

Making your own homemade Sourdough Protein Granola Bars is easy with only a few simple ingredients!

I modeled this recipe for crunchy sourdough granola bars off of the high-protein Kodiak granola bars. This recipe uses toasted oats, cocoa powder, mini chocolate chips, and chocolate whey protein powder and is lightly sweetened with honey.

The protein granola bars stay crunchy for days and store well, making them easy, fast pre- or post-workout protein bars or crumbled into chocolate sourdough granola. Furthermore, it’s easy to make these gluten-free using a gluten-free sourdough starter!

My recipe below walks through how to make these crunchy chocolate protein bars with detailed images and instructions for every step. You don’t need any fancy equipment or ingredients to make them and they come together in about 30 minutes.

---

👍 Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• Made with simple pantry ingredients such as oats, cocoa powder, and honey.
• Comes together in about 30 minutes.
• Lightly sweetened with honey with no other added sugars.
• Versatile recipe with lots of variations and other inclusions you can add.
• 5-6 grams of protein in each bar.
• Can make gluten-free if using a gluten-free sourdough starter.
• Crunchy, like Nature Valley Oats n’ Honey granola bars or crunchy Kodiak granola bars.
• Can break apart into chocolate sourdough granola!

---

🔍 Tips for Making Crunchy Sourdough Granola Bars

• You can use quick oats or old-fashioned rolled oats to make this recipe. However, if you’re using old-fashioned oats, you’ll want to use a food processor to break them up into smaller pieces. The smaller pieces help them stay crunchy and stick together better.
• Toasting the oats before baking adds more nutty flavor to the bars and helps keep them crunchy instead of chewy.
• Sourdough discard (or active sourdough starter), honey, and coconut oil help bind the ingredients in the wet mixture. However, you can easy substitute the honey with agave/maple syrup or the coconut oil with another oil, such as olive or avocado oil.
• For crunchy bars that stick together, press down the granola mixture with a spatula in an even layer and into the corners of your baking pan. Cut the bars while they’re still warm after a few minutes. If you wait too long and they cool before cutting them, they’ll break apart and crumble (use as granola in that case!).

---

🛠 Tools Needed

You don’t need any fancy equipment to make sourdough protein granola bars, but I list my tool recommendations below so you’ll have the most success!

• Baking scale
  • This recipe is quite flexible if you decide to measure by volume, but I recommend measuring by weight instead of volume for the best results. Ingredients like sourdough starter can weigh differently from person to person.
• Spatula, for mixing everything together
• 9×9″ square baking pan lined with parchment paper
  • If you use a smaller pan, the bars will be thicker and may need to bake longer. They’ll also be chewier.

---

🛒 Ingredients Needed

See below for my ingredient recommendations and possible substitutions to help you make these sourdough granola bars.

• Quick Oats
  • You can use quick oats or old-fashioned rolled oats for this recipe, but I prefer using quick oats because they’re already broken apart into small pieces which bind better in this recipe.
  • If you use old-fashioned rolled oats, pulse them a few times in a food processor to break them apart.
• Salt
• Cocoa powder
  • Adds a deeper chocolate flavor to the granola bars. You can use natural or Dutch-process in this recipe.
• Chocolate whey protein powder
  • I use the Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey Chocolate Protein Powder for mine.
• Honey
  • The only sweetener in this recipe is honey, so there’s no other added sugar (there’s some in the chocolate chips if you use it).
  • Can substitute with agave syrup or maple syrup.
• Coconut oil, melted
  • I use refined coconut oil, which has a neutral flavor and helps bind the dry ingredients together.
  • Can substitute with olive oil, avocado oil, or another neutral-tasting oil.
• Sourdough discard (or active starter)
  • Sourdough discard is unfed sourdough starter that you can use in sourdough discard recipes. When I feed my starter, I store the discard in the refrigerator so there’s no waste. Learn how to make sourdough starter from scratch and my top sourdough starter tips.
  • Like in my Easy Sourdough Discard Granola Recipe, the sourdough helps bind all the ingredients together and makes better clusters if you break it apart into granola.
• Vanilla extract
  • Vanilla balances out the chocolate flavors.
• Mini chocolate chips
  • Cacao nibs are an excellent substitute in this recipe as well!
  • Regular-sized chocolate chips are okay to use, but they tend to be a little too large for the bars and break apart more.

Sourdough Granola Bar Variations & Ideas

In addition to the substitutions above, below are some easy variations and ideas you can mix and match to make your own favorite sourdough granola bars!

• Coconut: Add ¼ cup of unsweetened shredded coconut to the mixture.
• Vanilla: Omit the cocoa powder and chocolate chips and substitute with plain or vanilla protein powder. Almond goes particularly well with vanilla here!
• Nuts, Seeds, or other crunchy things: Add ¼ cup of slivered almonds, chopped hazlenuts, pretzels, sunflower seeds, flax or chia seeds, sesame seeds, or chopped cashews to the mixture. Smaller nuts and seeds are better so the mixture holds better together. Depending on how much you add, you may need to increase the wet ingredients slightly.
• Dried fruit: Add ¼ cup of dried blueberries, cherries, or dates to the mixture.
• Dip in chocolate or glaze: Melt chocolate chips and coconut oil together to create a quick glaze that you can drizzle over the bars or dip the bars in.
• Spices: Add ½ tsp of cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, or nutmeg to the dry ingredients.

---

👨‍🍳 How to Make Sourdough Chocolate Protein Granola Bars

Follow this visual recipe guide as you make these chocolate sourdough granola bars. The guide includes helpful photos and detailed instructions for each step. As always, I recommend reading through the entire recipe first before making it so you know what to expect.

This recipe makes 12 sourdough protein granola bars.

1. Toast the Oats

Toasting the oats beforehand helps give these granola bars a more nutty and oaty flavor, akin to toasting nuts or browning butter before baking. It also helps them taste less raw and have a crunchier, flakier texture.

In a large skillet over medium-low heat and stirring often, heat the quick oats for 3-5 minutes, or until they smell fragrant and are lightly toasted. They’ll brown slightly, but not too much. Keep an eye on them, or they’ll quickly burn.

Remove from the heat and cool completely in a large mixing bowl.

2. Mix the Dry Ingredients

Once your toasted oats have completely cooled, add the salt, chocolate whey protein powder, and cocoa powder together in the bowl.

Set the bowl aside as you mix your wet ingredients.

3. Mix the Wet Ingredients

In a small mixing bowl, mix together the melted coconut oil, honey, vanilla extract, and sourdough discard until you have a thick, pourable mixture.

4. Mix the Granola

Pour the bowl of wet ingredients into the oats bowl.

Stir to coat with a spatula. At first, the mixture will seem dry, but will hydrate and form clusters as you mix together.

Add the mini chocolate chips last and stir until they’re incorporated throughout the granola mixture.

A couple of dry spots is normal, but most of the granola should have enough moisture to form clumps. This will come together when you press down the mixture in the pan. Add a tad more honey or coconut oil if it seems unusually dry.

5. Bake

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (177ºC). Line a 9×9″ square baking pan with parchment paper with a couple of inches overhang for easy removal. I usually create a rectangular strip that fits the width of the pan and only overhangs on two sides and use binder clips to hold the parchment paper in place (first image below).

Dump the chocolate sourdough granola mixture onto the parchment paper and use a spatula (or a measuring cup or offset spatula) to press it down tightly into the corners of the pan until it covers the entire bottom of the pan in an even, flat layer.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the top of the mixture is dry, smells slightly toasty, and retracts slightly from the edges of the pan.

For chewier bars, bake less. And for crunchier bars or making granola that will break apart, bake on the longer end.

6. Cool & Cut

Let the sourdough granola bars cool for 5 minutes before using the wings of parchment paper to lift the slab out of the pan onto a cutting board.

You want to slice the protein bars before they cool too much or they may crumble and break apart into lots of pieces (remember these are crunchy bars, not chewy bars so this is normal!).

Use a sharp knife to cut out 12 bars about 1.5″x4.5″ each. I make five 1.5″ long slices in one direction and divide each of those in half crosswise.

It’s normal if the granola bars crumble some as you cut them. If they’re still warm, you should be able to squeeze back together slightly, or you can just use the crumbles as granola cereal or with yogurt!

They will crisp up more as they cool.

Finally, the bars are excellent on their own as a pre or post-workout bar, as a more filling quick afternoon snack, school snack, or crumbled over yogurt or milk as granola.

---

How to Store

It’s amazing how long these crunchy sourdough protein granola bars keep. In an airtight container, they can keep for up to a week!

Depending on humidity and how long you bake them, they can get softer over time. To re-crisp them, place them in a toaster oven or oven for a couple of minutes.

I don’t recommend freezing the granola bars as they can take on a freezer smell and lose their crispiness.

---

❓ FAQs:

---

Other Sourdough Dessert Recipes You May Enjoy:

---