These Homemade Larabars are an easy, healthy energy bar recipe made with real ingredients. Choose your adventure: Apple Pie, Cherry Pie, Carrot Cake, or Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough!
Hands up if you love snacks! 🙋♀️ More hands up if you love snacks that:
- Are easy to make
- Save you money
- Can be batch made in advance
- Taste like store bought
🙋♀️🙋♀️🙋♀️🙋♀️🙋♀️🙋♀️🙋♀️🙋♀️
That’s the name of the game with these homemade Larabars. They’re decadent, packed with real ingredients, and come in the four most popular Larabar flavors: Apple Pie, Cherry Pie, Carrot Cake, and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough!
I reverse engineered these Larabar copycats, using only the ingredients listed on the Larabar label to create these homemade versions. That means no added flavors or ingredients, no fluff – just simple ingredients for great energy bars. Let’s do this!
How to Make Homemade Larabars
Making homemade Larabars is as simple as blitzing the ingredients in a food processor until evenly mixed, forming into a rectangle, then cutting into bars. (I like to freeze the rectangle for 30 minutes before cutting to give the bars crisp edges!)
The recipes for each of our favorite four flavors are below, but they all generally follow this master Larabar recipe:
- 1 ½ cups dried fruit: In almost every bar, dates act as a natural sweetener and glue to hold everything together. Then we throw in more dried fruits for flavor (like apples, pineapple, cherries, and raisins!)
- 1 cup nuts: Larabars often use almonds, though walnuts and pecans go great in them too.
Apple Pie Larabars
Everything you love about apple pie – the wintery spices, raisins, and nuts – all packed into a tasty little bar! To make this apple pie flavor you’ll need:
- Dates: Medjool dates add natural sweetness and help glue our Larabars together.
- Raisins: Feel free to use dark or golden raisins here.
- Dried Apples: Wouldn’t be apple pie without the apples! Rather than using fresh apples, which would make these bars too watery (and less shelf stable), we’re going with dried. Find them online here.
- Almonds: Almonds are another ingredient commonly found in Larabars. They add a nice dose of crunch and healthy fats!
- Walnuts: With both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, these are more than just a tasty addition to the bars, they’re healthy too!
- Cinnamon: Gotta have the apple pie spice! Ground cinnamon plays the part perfectly (feel free to go wild and throw in ground nutmeg and cloves as well).
You’ll basically just throw all of your Apple Pie Larabar ingredients into a food processor and blitz until the nuts and apples are finely broken down and evenly combined.
These bars hold their shape well, but I still like to pop them in the freezer after forming them into a rectangle to make cutting them easier.
Cherry Pie Larabars
Next up, Cherry Pie. These win the award for “Shortest Ingredients List” – you’ll just need three!
- Dates: Medjool dates add natural sweetness and help glue our Larabars together.
- Dried Cherries: Dried cherries aren’t overly sweet, but bring all the flavor of cherry pie! Find them online here.
- Almonds: Add a little crunch and nutty flavor.
Throw all your Cherry Pie Larabar ingredients in a food processor and blitz to combine!
These bars are a bit more moist, so definitely pop them into the freezer after forming the dough into a rectangle to help make cutting easier.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Larabars
We switched up our a recipe a bit from the Larabars ingredients list, nixing the cashews and adding rolled oats for that perfect cookie dough flavor. I know you’re not supposed to have favorite children but…this one is mine!
- Dates: Medjool dates add natural sweetness and help glue our Larabars together.
- Chocolate Chips: I went with semi-sweet, though dark chocolate would be delicious (and vegan!)
- Rolled Oats: Rolled (aka old fashioned) oats add a nutty flavor and make these bars utterly addictive! In a pinch you could also use instant oats, though the texture might be different (steel cut oats will not work here).
- Salt: Salt brings out the flavors of the oats and chocolate, amplifying that cookie dough flavor!
- Vanilla: Finish it off with good quality vanilla extract.
To make these Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Larabars, blitz together all ingredients except the chocolate chips.
Once you have a well-combined dough, stir in the chocolate chips and form into a rectangle. Pop in the freezer for 30 minutes then cut into bars.
Carrot Cake Larabars
The ingredients list may be longer, but each plays a crucial role in creating these scrumptious Carrot Cake Larabars!
- Dates: Medjool dates add natural sweetness and help glue our Larabars together.
- Raisins: A carrot cake classic, these bring a deep sweetness reminiscent of the traditional cake!
- Dried Pineapple: Even more sweetness for our cake bars. If you have trouble finding them on, get them online here!
- Almonds: Throw almonds in for some crunch and substance.
- Walnuts: With both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, these are more than just a tasty addition to the bars, they’re healthy too!
- Unsweetened Shredded Coconut: Be sure to use unsweetened coconut here!
- Carrot: We’ll use fresh shredded carrots, meaning the shelf life of these bars will be less than with the other flavors.
- Cinnamon: Gotta have the spice! Ground cinnamon plays the part perfectly (feel free to go wild and throw in ground nutmeg and cloves as well).
- Coconut Oil: Tie it all together with a spoonful of extra virgin coconut oil.
Pack all those ingredients into a food processor and blitz until evenly combined.
These bars are the softest of all the flavors, so pop them in the freezer for at least 30 minutes before cutting into bars.
Ingredients
Apple Pie
- ½ cup dates about 5
- ¼ cup raisins 35 g
- 1 cup dried apples 115 g
- ¼ cup almonds 35 g
- ¼ cup walnuts 35 g
- ½ tsp cinnamon
Cherry pie
- ½ cup dates about 5
- 1 cup dried cherries 140 g
- ½ cup almonds 35 g
Cookie Dough
- ½ cup dates about 5
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ½ cup rolled oats 45 g
- ¼ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips 40 g
Carrot Cake
- ½ cup dates about 5
- ¼ cup raisins 35 g
- ¼ cup dried pineapple 35 g
- ¼ cup almonds 35 g
- ¼ cup walnuts 35 g
- ¼ cup unsweetened shredded coconut 25 g
- ¼ cup shredded carrot 25 g
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp coconut oil 5 mL
Instructions
- Soak: Pick the flavor you're going to make. It's best if you soak the dates (and if your recipe has them, the raisins) in hot water for 30 minutes before using.
- Blitz: Add all the ingredients to a food processor (if making Cookie Dough bars, do not add chocolate chips yet). Blitz until the ingredients are finely broken down and evenly combined.
- Shape: Shape dough into a rectangle. It should be about ½ inch (1½ cm) thick. For best cutting results, transfer to a plate or cutting board and freeze for 30 minutes.
- Cut: Cut rectangle into bars. Wrap each bar in parchment or wax paper. Store in the fridge until ready to eat.
Ashley O Coates says
Hi Sarah,
Thank you for reverse-engineering these bars. I am sensitive to almonds so I want to try the recipes with walnuts and/or sunflower seeds.
Question: The chocolate chip cookie dough bar ingredients are missing nuts–is there a correction?
Sarah says
Hi Ashley! There are no nuts in the Cookie Dough bars. Although the actual Larabars have cashews, I wanted to create a nut-free option for folks. Enjoy! 😀
GW says
These are fantastic. We made the carrot cake and they are wonderful. I need to guy another Larbar to see if they are as good.
Alioli says
Marvellous! May thanks
Jill says
I’m getting ready to make the apple pie larabar. The recipe calls for 1 cup or 175 g of dried apples. When I weighed out the apples 175g is way more than a cup. Why might I have such a difference?
Sarah says
I must have mixed up my notes, sorry about that Jill! Go with 1 cup 😀
jo says
I haven’t actually ever eaten larabars but thought I’d make these for a cycling husband. However, what I’ve ended up with is very soft and not very transportable. Is this what they are meant to be like?
I made the cookie dough and apple pie and had the same question about the cup vs 175g of dried apple (but didn’t read the comments until afterwards). The cookie dough recipe also seems significantly smaller
Sarah says
Each recipe is a little different in softness (carrot cake being the softest). Generally once they warm up, they’re all a little soft, so I like to store them in the fridge to keep them firm. Enjoy! 😀
Dave says
Maybe a typo in the recipes. Most say 1/2 cup of dates is 5 dates, but in the Cookie Dough recipe it says 1/2 cup is 10 dates. Based on the recipe I’m suspecting it’s supposed to say 1 cup, not 1/2 cup. Thanks for including weights…much easier that trying to accurately measure dates in a cup! Dave
Sarah says
Hi Dave thanks so much for pointing this out – fixing now!
DIANE says
For the cookie dough, should it be 1/2 c dates or 1 cup per Dave’s question? I used 1/2 cup. They are in the freezer now. Thanks!
Sarah Bond says
1/2 cup! Or about 5 dates.
Bria says
Is it possible to use a high powered blender instead of a food processor?
Sarah Bond says
It should work, but you may need to push down the mixture a few times to get it into the blades
Deanna says
Can the apple pie be made without raisins?
Sarah Bond says
Yes! You may want to throw in some dates or dried cranberries for a little sweetness though.
Deanna says
Thank you.
Deanna says
I try to stay away from oats so could nuts be substituted in the cookie dough recipe? If so, what kind would be best for that recipe and how much?
Sarah Bond says
I haven’t tried this so I really don’t know if it’ll work, but I think cashews or almonds would work well with that one!