Almond Joy-Inspired No-Bake Breakfast Cereal Bar Recipe

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Cereal bars are a perfect snack to have on hand. Whether it's for a simple breakfast as you're running out the door, a sweet afternoon snack, or a little burst of energy before a workout, nothing beats a cereal bar for a quick and easy snack. And they are doubly great when they are homemade, from simple ingredients, and tailored to your personal tastes.

A delicious combination of almond butter, honey, and puffed rice cereal, the base of these bars is a treat all by itself. But the coconut, chocolate, and chopped almonds mixed in — a nod to Almond Joy candy – turn these bars into the sort of snack you'll be thinking about all morning, after you've packed them in your lunch for the day.

Picking up a box of cereal bars at the grocery store is simple enough that most folks have never even considered making them at home. But once you try out this recipe, you'll wonder why you've ever paid so much for a box of cereal bars, wrapped in so much plastic. It only takes a few minutes of stirring ingredients together to mix up a batch, and then they're off to the fridge. An hour later, you have 10 cereal bars ready to go, made just how you like them — meaning much better than the unhealthy breakfast bars you might buy at the store.

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For this recipe, you will need almond butter, honey, puffed rice cereal, dried coconut, semisweet chocolate chips, and chopped roasted almonds. Once you have these ingredients together, you are just a few minutes of mixing and a short wait away from delicious no-bake cereal bars.

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Add the almond butter and honey to a mixing bowl and stir together until well-mixed.

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Pour in the puffed rice cereal and mix until uniform.

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Next, add the dried coconut, chocolate chips, and almonds. Stir until evenly distributed.

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Line an 8x8-inch baking dish with waxed paper.

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Spoon the cereal mixture into the baking dish, and spread evenly.

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Place the baking dish in the refrigerator or freezer for an hour to set.

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Remove the waxed paper from the baking dish and slice it into 10 bars.

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Serve immediately, or store in the refrigerator for later.

A.J. Forget/Mashed

For this recipe, we chose a tried-and-true flavor combination borrowed from the classic candy bar, Almond Joy. Dried coconut, semisweet chocolate, and salty roasted almonds add a beautiful melange of flavors to the base of puffed rice cereal, almond butter, and honey. Much like you probably wouldn't recognize the original Almond Joy wrapper, you can think of this as another "wrapper" for this first-rate flavor combination. But there are many more directions you could take your cereal bars. Leave out the almonds, and you have something more like a Mounds bar. Substitute peanut butter for almond butter and drop the almonds and coconut, and you have something with more of a Reese's flavor profile. Or you can get away from the candy bar comparisons and just let your imagination run wild.

The base of the bar — cereal, nut butter, and honey — gives you the structure that you need. Beyond that, the world is your oyster (though we wouldn't suggest mixing those in). Try to stick to similar measures to those we use — around ¾ cups of mix-ins total — and use ingredients that won't add moisture. Things like nuts, seeds, dried fruits, different types of chocolate — all of these work great. We suggest following the recipe closely on your first go, so that you get the hang of it, but after that, feel free to get creative with your mix-ins and create something new and delicious.

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Given that this particular recipe is focused on the flavors of the Almond Joy candy bar, we think that almond butter is the best choice of nut butter. That said, there is no reason that you couldn't sub it out for something else — particularly if you want to get creative with your mix-ins as well.

As far as replacing the nut butter goes, you can go ahead and keep the quantities exactly the same. Depending on the nut butter you choose as a replacement, the consistency of the bars may change slightly, but overall they will be very similar.

Peanut butter is undoubtedly the most common of the nut butters out there, and would work just fine as a substitute. Peanut butter and honey are a classic combination and will make a great cereal bar. The overall recipe, particularly adding coconut and chopped almonds, is a bit less tested, but odds are it would still taste pretty great. If you need some inspiration, check out this ultimate guide to nut butters.