Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars

Bar recipes are one of my favorite sweet recipes to make. I love how easy it is to press the dough into the pan then simply bake, slice and enjoy. My Chocolate Chip Banana Bars, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bars, Toll House Cookie Bars and Snickerdoodle Bars are just a few of my favorites from the blog. I am so excited to add these oatmeal peanut butter bars to the other bar recipes on the blog. 

• Simple pantry ingredients. You only need a handful of basic ingredients to make a batch of easy to make, thick, soft and chewy pb oat bars. 
• Easy alternative to cookies. If being super quick and easy to make wasn’t reason enough, these chocolate chip, peanut butter and oat bars make the perfect alternative to cozy cookies.

Make sure you have these simple ingredients ready to go before making this thick and chewy oat and peanut butter bars.

• Dry Ingredients: Gather your all purpose flour, old fashioned oats, baking soda, and salt. 
• Wet ingredients: Gather your unsalted butter, light brown sugar, granulated sugar, light brown sugar, creamy peanut butter, an egg, vanilla extract and chocolate chips.

Here are my recommended substitutions to make these oatmeal chocolate peanut butter bars recipe if you need them.

• All purpose flour: To make these peanut butter bars gluten free, use a good 1-1 gluten free flour or oat flour. Replace the amount of flour based on weight (120 g) rather than cups. 
• Old Fashioned Oats: Quick cooking oats are not recommended for this recipe. 
• Baking Soda: This provides leavening and chewiness. This recipe hasn’t been tested with baking powder. 
• Butter: I like to use unsalted “sweet cream” butter in almost all my baking recipes. This is the most common and widely available butter in the US. If needed, use salted butter (omit the added salt) or a diary free butter you like. 
• Granulated Sugar and Light Brown Sugar: This peanut butter oat bars recipe calls for both granulated sugar and light brown sugar, but maple sugar would also work well to make these cookie bars refined sugar free. 
• Creamy Peanut Butter: Feel free to use any creamy peanut butter (no stir) you like. Natural peanut butter (the kind you have to stir) can also work as long as the peanut butter is every thoroughly mixed. 
• Eggs: This recipe hasn’t been tested without eggs. 
• Vanilla Extract: This provides a lovely background flavor for these chewy cookie bars.
• Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips: Feel free to use any chocolate chips or chunks of chocolate you like. Milk chocolate and dark chocolate would work really well. Feel free to omit if needed.

Variations

• No Bake Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars: Mix 1 cup creamy peanut butter with ½ cup honey until well combined. Stir in 3 cups old fashioned oats until well combined. Gently press the mixture into a lined 8 x 8  or 9 x 9 inch pan. Chill in the fridge for 1 - 2 hours or until set. If you would like top the bars with a drizzle of melted chocolate (melt and mix together 4 tablespoons chocolate with 1 tablespoon peanut butter) . Return to the fridge for about 30 minutes to set the chocolate drizzle.
• Nut Free Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars: For a peanut butter taste without peanut butter, sunflower butter is a great nut free substitute for peanut butter.

Learn how to make peanut butter oatmeal bars in a few easy steps.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F (177 C). Lightly grease and line the bottom and two long sides of a 8 x 8 pan.  In a mixing bowl, whisk the flour, oats, baking soda and salt together until well combined.
2. In a mixing bowl fitted with paddle attachment, cream the butter with the light brown and granulated sugars until smooth and well combined. Add the creamy peanut butter and mix into the butter and sugars until smooth and well combined. On low, cream in the eggs and vanilla extract until smooth and well combined. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined. I like to do this about ½  of the dry ingredients at a time. Fold in the chocolate chips.

3. Press the peanut butter oat dough into the prepared pan. Use a flexible spatula to smooth the dough evenly across the pan. Top with the reserved chocolate chips. Bake for about 20 - 25 minutes or until the edges of bars are a light golden brown, slightly puffed up and the edges are slightly pulled away from the sides of the pan. Cool the peanut butter oat bars in the hot pan until room temperature. This takes about 45 - 60 minutes. When the oatmeal bars have cooled long enough to transfer out of the pan without breaking, use the excess parchment paper on the long sides of the pan and gently lift the bars out of the pan and to cool on a cooling rack, then slice and enjoy.

M’s Expert Tips

• Bring cold ingredients to room temperature: This allows the ingredients to mix together more evenly which requires less mixing, resulting in deliciously chewy peanut butter oatmeal bars.
• Use a metal pan. This recipe was made  in an 8 x 8 aluminum pan. To make this in a glass pan, decrease the oven temperature to 325 F (160 C) and bake for 5 - 10 minutes longer. 
• Look for the signs the oat and peanut butter bars are done. Use the baking time as a guide rather than a strict rule. Signs a these thick and chewy oatmeal bars are finished baking is a light golden brown color across the top and baked edges that have slightly pulled away from the edge of the pan. 
• Drizzle a bit of warm peanut butter on top. A drizzle of warm peanut butter makes these oat bars extra decadent and fun to eat.

Other Oatmeal Recipes to Try

• Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
• Iced Oatmeal Cookies
• Oatmeal Coconut Cookies

If you try this Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars recipe please rate the recipe and leave a comment below. Doing so helps other readers decide if this is a great recipe to bake. Don’t forget to tag me on Instagram using @olivesnthyme so I can see what you’re baking! - M