No-Bake Oatmeal Energy Balls
If you’re looking for a quick, easy and healthy snack to make for the week look no further than these No-Bake Oatmeal Energy Balls. Made with rolled oats, dates, dried cranberries, walnuts, chocolate chips, and peanut butter. They are packed with protein, healthy fats and fiber making them the perfect on-the-go snack. These energy balls are gluten-free, refined-sugar free and dairy-free.
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup pitted dates
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 1/3 cup crushed walnuts
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips
- 2 cups gluten-free rolled oats
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1 cup peanut butter (creamy, unsalted)
Instructions
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Line a large baking sheet pan with parchment paper and set aside.
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Place dates and cranberries in food processor bowl and pulse for about 30 seconds. Until dates and cranberries are broken down to small pieces. Toss in raw walnuts and chocolate chips and pulse again until these are also broken down to small pieces. Toss in oats and cinnamon and continue to pulse for a few seconds to blend oats into the rest of the ingredients. Just pulse for about 10-20 seconds. You don't want oats to start to get pulverized.
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Pour into food processor the wet ingredients; vanilla extract, maple syrup and peanut butter. Pulse for a good 30-40 seconds until you see the ingredients start to clump together almost forming a ball.
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For this next step, you can either remove the blade of the food processor and use the bowl, or place the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. I prefer the latter because it gives me more room to work with.
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Use your hands to scoop out a handful of the mixture. Close your hand firmly forming a tight fist and clumping the mixture together. Use both hands to shape into a 1-2 inch ball. Place shaped ball on prepped baking sheet pan. Continue with this process until the whole mixture has been converted into balls. You will end up with about 25 balls depending on how big or small you make them.
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Once all energy balls are on the baking sheet pan, place them in the freezer for 20-30 minutes so that they can get firm. Move the balls to a freezer bag, silicone bag or freezer friendly container. You can either keep the energy balls in the fridge for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Recipe Notes
Tips and Substitution:
- Line baking sheet pan with parchment paper- It will prevent energy balls from sticking to the pan while they are in the freezer.
- Pulse ingredients in the order indicated in recipe directions rather than adding them all at once- Pulsing the ingredients separately and getting them into smaller pieces first will end up in smoother rounder balls. If they are all blended at the same time they will just clump up together in big chunks.
- Place pulsed ingredients in a large mixing bowl- This will give you more room to work with as you scoop out the mixture.
- Substitute for maple syrup- You can use honey.
- Mix up your nuts- Use any other nuts you wish like pecans, almonds or cashews.
- Switch up your dried fruit- Substitute dates and cranberries for dried cherries or apricots.