Healthy Millionaire’s DIY Protein Bars
Can you guess what’s underneath that amazing, thick veil of chocolate? Fudgy bars made with rich-tasting almond butter plus a luscious layer of caramel. Is your stomach growling yet?? Mine sure is. These sweet and decadent Millionaire’s DIY Protein Bars don’t taste healthy at all, they taste like candy bars full of sugar.
They actually taste like sin. Pure sin.
These decadent Millionaire’s DIY Protein Bars are chocolatey, caramelly, sweet, and rich.
Every bite will make you feel like a million bucks. This is THE perfect treat to have on hand for snacks, dessert, or even a breakfast on the go — it’s nutritionally balanced (with fiber, protein and zero refined sugar) so you will stay fuller for longer, unlike typical storebought candy bars. What’s not to love??
Healthy Millionaire’s DIY Protein Bars
Ingredients
Protein Bars:
- 128g (½ cup) Roasted Almond Butter (Roasted Cashew Butter works great too!)
- 1 cup + 2 tbs Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
- 1 tsp Vanilla Paste
- 1 tsp Vanilla Crème-Flavored Stevia Extract
- 90g (¾ cup) Oat Flour
- 84g (⅔ cup, packed) Vanilla Brown Rice Protein Powder
- 84g (⅔ cup, packed) Chocolate Brown Rice Protein Powder (you can swap with more Vanilla if you like)
- ¼ tsp Flaked Sea Salt
Salted Caramel Frosting:
- ⅓ cup Caramel Sauce (I use Date Caramel Sauce)
- 75g (½ cup, packed) Vanilla Brown Rice Protein Powder
- ⅛ tsp Flaked Sea Salt
Chocolate Coating:
- 6 oz Bittersweet Chocolate (melted; I used 70% Cacao)
Instructions
For the Protein Bars:
- Line an 8x8” brownie pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In an electric stand mixer bowl tted with a beater attachment, add all of the ingredients. Mix on low speed until everything is fully incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Mix on medium speed for one last mix. Mixture should be thick and fudgy, like cookie dough.
- Scoop the mixture into the brownie pan and flatten it out.
For the Salted Caramel Frosting:
- In a small bowl, stir together the caramel sauce, protein powder and salt. Mixture should be thick and slightly sticky. Spoon the mixture over the protein bar base and spread to the edges of the pan. Place in the freezer uncovered for 1 hour.
- Lift the mixture out of the pan. Slice into 12 bars.
For the Chocolate Coating:
- Place a silicone baking mat on top of a jelly roll pan and line the protein bars on top. With a large spoon, ladle the melted chocolate over the protein bars. Try to encase the entire bar with chocolate. Feel free to top the bars with a sprinkle of aked sea salt for decoration!
Recipe Notes
If you like this recipe, then you’ll LOVE my DIY Protein Bars Cookbook! With 48 protein bar recipes, you’ll never buy protein bars from the store again. To learn more about the book and see some sneak peeks, see this page!
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Enjoy!
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Be happy.
Live fully.
Eat protein bars.
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– Jess
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Indulge − no strings attached!
Mmmmm you should seriously just market and sell this stuff. So good.
I love your pictures and recipes. I’d like to inform you of a great new website http://www.foodieportal.com. I would like to invite you to come and join us and share your wonderful pictures with us. We are simply foodies and we are not photography snobs, so picture perfection is not important, all we care about is delicious food. We’re pretty new so give us a chance. 🙂
What a great idea to make marcona almond butter! I can only imagine how divine it tastes – I’ll have to remedy that right away, and these millionaire’s bars seem like the perfect way to do it!
These look delicious! And the pictures are gorgeous. Can’t wait to trey them!
These look just like the Medifast Caramel Nut, bars except for the fact that yours look 10x better and are probably healthier. Im so glad your millionaire bars don’t hve a million chemical ingredients or sugars ending in “ose.” The only “ose ” word in your vocabulary is delici”ose”.
Aww thanks Elise! 😀
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Hi! I see that a lot of your recipes call for protein powder.I would really like to make them, but I don’t buy protein powder.So what would be a good substitute that I could use?
In my baking/dessert-making experience, I have never come across an ingredient that can replace protein powder. Coconut flour and peanut flour absorb a similar amount of liquid as brown rice protein powder, however they do not taste similar at all and the texture will either be too crumbly or too gooey. I don’t think protein powder is something to be against, it is just a supplement. It is not meant to replace healthy foods or protein sources, it is just there for those days where you lack protein or need a boost. I would certainly keep a tub of it around. Plus, it tastes good 😉
-Jess
Thank you Jessica! I cant wait to get started!(I’ll probably OD on them too! 😉 )
Oat flour is full of gluten..?
Alysha-
No, certified gluten free oat flour contains no gluten. See the link in the recipe to see the GF oat flour I use.
Regular oats and oat flour might because oats are commonly grown adjacent to wheat fields, but not all.
Wonderful recipe! Keep it up.
I just tried making these because they look so good. The problem I had was that the dough never got thick at all. I am using whey protein powder instead of rice protein powder, otherwise everything is pretty much the same. What am I doing wrong, I wonder?
Hillary-
It’s the whey protein powder… for some reason whey, casein and egg protein powder can’t replace brown rice protein powder at all. It turns the dough really gooey and sticky and it doesn’t solidify properly 🙁
-Jess
Hi, I would LOVE to make my protein bars at home and your recipes look super delicious! Unfortunately, you always use rice protein. I only have whey at home. Do you have any recipes with whey? Or could you make some? I would love that! <3
Thanks!
Julia-
Thanks so much! These are super delicious 😉
Unfortunately, I have had ZERO luck in making whey protein bar recipes. They never set properly and the mixture turns all gooey and sticky. I do have high-protein recipes with whey protein powder in them, but they’re not technically “protein bars” — they’re more like energy bars.
My favorites are the Peanut Butter & Chocolate Shortbread Bars and the Peanut Butter & Jelly Shortbread Bars!
-Jess
These do look amazing. I think these would be a great 3pm snack to keep me going.
Jessica, you inspire me. You and your recipes are completely awesome!
Can you sub in other plant based protein powders for the rice? I only have vega which is mainly pea protein.
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This is glorious. I would say this is more like a meal replacement rather than a protein bar. I would have added much more whey protein and soy protein. I’d like to try out for sure!
Whey does NOT work in place of rice protein, but I haven’t tried soy protein before. Feel free to test it out! Hope you like the recipe Alex 🙂
I just made these and they are delicious! And very filling as well. I bought your book too because if this recipe was so good, I can’t wait to try the other flavors. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. YUM!!
Awwwww yay!! That made my day. So glad you liked the protein bars Niv!! 💖
Do you think you could use pea protein based protein powder for this?
Pea protein acts very different than rice protein in my experience, so I’d say no. However I haven’t tried it in this recipe before, so feel free to test it out! Good luck 🙂