Homemade Snickers: How to Make a Healthy Candy Bar

Can a homemade snickers bar be as good as a store bought one? Yes! But if you want it to be a HEALTHY Snickers Bar, it's gonna be a little different.

First of all, these are RAW snickers bars {read – no bake!🙌🏼} and also vegan! And even though this fun treat can be served as a fabulous dessert, with all the nuts you can also indulge as a snicker's protein bar snack! Now that's what I call a GREAT treat.

Are Snickers Healthy?

First you may be asking yourself, what's the point of making my own? Can't I just eat a regular Snickers Bar? It's got peanuts, isn't that healthy?

Yes, but no. Sorry to disappoint. Snickers Bars actually landed in the number 3 spot for the most unhealthy candy bar with their combination of sugar and fats without fiber or additional nutrition to balance it out!

What are the most unhealthy candy bars you ask? You can check and see if your favorite candy bar made the list here.

Homemade Snickers Bar Ingredients

• Medjool dates pitted
• Salted peanuts
• Sea Salt
• Vanilla
• Milk of choice
• Chocolate chips of your choice, I recommendSugar free dark chocolate chips like Lily's {also available from Whole Foods}

Helpful Kitchen Tools

• Food Processor
• High Speed Blender {I LOVE my Vitamix}
• Rubber scraper
• Parchment paper
• Square baking dish

Healthy Snickers Bar Recipe Instructions

Line the Pan with Parchment

Now I know that I'm showing a loaf pan in the photo but I listed an 8″x8″ square baking dish in the “helpful kitchen tools”. I ended up with too much base crust and caramel so spreading it out a little further would work even better. Making your bars a little thinner and easier to cut and eat.

So the first thing to do it to line that pan with parchment paper because these homemade snickers are NEVER coming out if you don't!

Side note: I always end up buying the parchment paper in rolls cause it's easy to find but I'm seriously considering getting some precut parchment baking sheets from now on! You'd still need to trim them for this project but they'd be SO slick for cookie sheets. 

Prepare the Snickers Bar Base

What is the bottom layer of a snickers bar? It's nougat. Made from sugar, nuts, and egg whites. {also NOT vegan if you're keeping score}

Our base layer is different than a traditional snickers bar by using nuts for a chewy texture and dates to add sweetness.

Simply toss the pitted dates and peanuts {or nut of choice} into the food processor until forming a dough like consistency. It takes a little patience to get this right. It feels like the lumps are never going to come out, but eventually they do and it's perfect.

It should feel like stiff cookie dough when it's done. Then press evenly into the bottom of your prepared dish. I find using the back on an oiled spoon helps get the layers smooth.

Prepare the Snickers Caramel

Add dates, salt, vanilla, and 1/4 cup of milk to your blender. Blend on high speed until smooth. If you have trouble blending add a little bit more milk 1 tsp at a time until you reach 1/3 cup milk total. Any more liquid and your caramel won't set properly.

After the caramel is blended smooth over the crust and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.

Optional Chopped Nuts Layer

A real snickers bar has peanuts. But we are making things up here and can decide if we're going to follow suit. Are you a crunchy peanut butter kind of person? If so, you'll love adding in a layer of chopped peanuts to make a great snicker's protein bar.

But if you'd rather go creamy, feel free to skip this step. It just won't have as much protein {or fat} in the end.

Homemade Snickers Chocolate Layer

Now to keep this healthy your choice of chocolate is important. If you aren't too concerned with a little sugar, semi-sweet chocolate chips would work great here.

If you'd like to keep this vegan, choose a dark chocolate. Going for refined sugar free? Then a sugar-free dark chocolate chip like Lily's is perfect. They are sweetened with Stevia, but somehow don't have that weird aftertaste.

Melt in microwave in 30 second bursts and spread evenly on top.

Refrigerate for 10-15 minutes for the chocolate to set then pull it out to serve at room temperature.

Important note – the sugar free chips don't melt as pretty as milk chocolate. You'll likely end up with some white spots on top after the cooling process. It doesn't affect the taste and no one seemed to mind a bit when serving.

Slice and Serve Homemade Snickers

Now that your pan of healthy snickers bars are done you can cut and serve these babies. Use a heated knife to avoid squishing the caramel out the sides. Then serve them up with a cup of milk or tea.

I hope these homemade snickers bars are as much fun for you to make as they are for you to eat! Since it's a raw snickers bar, you'll want to refrigerate any leftovers in a covered container. But take a few out to reach room temperature so you always have a yummy snack available.

If you do make this healthy snickers bar recipe I'd love to see it! And I'm sure everyone else would too. Please share it and tag us @partieswithacause on Facebook , Instagram , and Pinterest. We LOVE seeing all your hard work.

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Additional Healthy Party Food Ideas

• Yummy Apple Donuts
• Healthy Fruit Pizza
• Avocado Chocolate Pudding Recipe
• MoreSugar Free Desserts Without Artificial Sweeteners