These healthy, nut free elderberry no bake granola bars are so easy to make that they’ll show up in your lunch box every week. With soaked oatmeal, coconut oil, dried elderberries and honey these bars are homemade treat you and the kids will love!
This article has been undated since its original publication in 2020. Eat up!
More Healthy Treats for Later:
Strawberry No Bake Cookies (Low Carb!)
Homemade Gumdrops (No Sugar Option)
Before you get started mixing the granola bars (which is super easy and quick), you’ll need to be sure your elderberries are properly processed if you’ve picked them fresh. No worries, though, because it’s not hard to prepare the elderberries and then you’ll have a big batch ready to go for many recipes!
To Dehydrate Elderberries
Be sure to only harvest completely ripe berries because unripe berries are toxic. You can grow your own elderberries or forage them if they grow wild in your area. It is important to use only HEAT-TREATED elderberries for this recipe.
- Wash ripe (only ripe) berries and pick off all the stems. Pull out any unripe berries as they can be detrimental to your health. Please visit this article on Elderberry Safety from The Healthy Home Economist.
- Alternatively, you can dehydrate elderberries you’ve used to make syrup or other recipes.
- Lay them out evenly on dehydrator sheets. Or, lay them out evenly onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, if you don’t have a dehydrator.
- Set the dehydrator to around 175F/79C. Or, set your oven as low as it will go.
- It can take 8 hours or more to dehydrate the berries completely in the dehydrator.
- The berries will look like tiny raisins when they’re done. Be sure to let them cool completely before you store them. I like to store my dried berries in quart sized canning jars. They should last up to a year, although we usually use ours up way before then.
To learn about a bit more about elderberry preservation, including how to dry them with only the sun, here are 3 Beginner Friendly Methods of Drying Elderberries from Drying All Foods.
Are Elderberries Poisonous?
The simple answer is, they can be. Elderberry seeds contain amygdalin which is a sugar molecule that can induce cyanide. This can lead to some stomach upset and, in large amounts, could make a child or someone with a weak immune system more ill.
- You’d probably get sick of eating them before that happened, though, because they’re super stringent – they make you pucker like a sour cherry!
Heat treating is the easiest way to render that potential inert. Chris from Joybilee Farms explains how that works in her article 3 Elderberry Myths:
“…processing elderberries degrades the cyanide compounds, which include Cyanidin-3-sambubioside and cyanidin-3-glucoside. These cyanide compounds are degraded by fermentation and by heat. Using dried berries in tea reduced the cyanide compounds by 80%. Processing them for jellies, jams, and syrup reduced these compounds by 96%. Cyanide will vaporize at 26C (78F), just above room temperature, so heat treating the berries, by boiling or making elderberry syrup or jelly, will render them harmless.”
The heat treatment the berries undergo in the dehydrator is well over 78F/26C.
However, if you’d like to bake these granola bars to be extra sure, we’ve included instructions for that.
Elderberry No Bake Granola Bars Recipe
You can use plain dehydrated elderberries in this recipe, or you can use the leftover cream-soaked elderberries from our fabulous elderberry torte.
—->>>Read our Flourless Elderberry Chocolate Torte Recipe<<<—-
The recipe calls for soaked oats and gives instructions on how to make them, but you can also use dry oats.
One last thing, this recipe is really so simple that you can have the kids help you make it. Your children can even help you forage the elderberries, with a little instruction. After the recipe, you can look for a short video with tips for making these no bake granola bars even easier!
Here’s a quick video tutorial for this recipe, and then the recipe is below. Let us know if you have any questions!
Elderberry No Bake Granola Bars
Ingredients
- 4 cups Oats, soaked or dry See notes for instructions on soaking oats for this recipe.
- 1/4 cup Honey
- 1/2 cup Coconut sugar
- 1/2 cup Coconut oil
- 1/2 cup Coconut butter
- 2 tsp. Vanilla
- 1 tsp. Sea salt
- 1 cup Elderberries, dried
- 1 cup Dark chocolate chips, optional
Instructions
- Line a 9 x 11 glass dish with parchment paper.
- Mix oats, salt, elderberries and chocolate chips in one bowl.
- Melt the honey, coconut sugar, coconut oil, coconut butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir to prevent scorching. When melted, remove from heat and cool a few minutes. Stir in vanilla.
- Add melted mixture to oat mixture and mix very well.
- Turn the oat mixture into the dish and press down firmly until the mixture is even. Use a piece of parchment paper on top of the mixture to press evenly and prevent your hands from getting sticky. Continue to press until you're sure the mixture is very firmly in place. If it is loose, the bars will not hold together.
- Cover and place in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours. When done, remove parchment paper and cut granola bars with a pizza cutter. Individually wrap in parchment paper or beeswax wraps to keep from sticking.
- Store at room temperature for 3-5 days, or longer in the refrigerator.
Notes
- Place the oats in a bowl and cover them with water.
- Add a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar or whey.
- Soak overnight on the counter.
- In the morning, rinse them thoroughly in a colander or sieve.
- Dry the soaked oats in the oven or dehydrator by following the same instructions you did for dehydrating elderberries. You can raise the temperature on the dehydrator to dry them more quickly. If you'd like to use the oven, preheat it to 350F/177C and toast the oats for about 8 minutes.
- Return the dish to the refrigerator for 4 hours.
Steps for Making Elderberry No Bake Granola Bars
Fortunately, making granola bars is pretty straightforward, especially when they’re no bake!
Prepare the elderberries and then mix the ingredients as described in the recipe.
Turn the oat mixture into the dish and press down firmly until the mixture is even. Use a piece of parchment paper on top of the mixture to press evenly and prevent your hands from getting sticky. Continue to press until you’re sure the mixture is very firmly in place. If it is loose, the bars will not hold together.
Cover and place in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours. When done, remove parchment paper and cut granola bars with a pizza cutter. Individually wrap in parchment paper or beeswax wraps to keep from sticking.
Wrap the cut granola bars in parchment paper, beeswax wrap, or store them in tupperware. They’re great for roadtrips or school lunches.
They also work well as a healthy dessert after dinner!
Soak Oats for Healthier Granola Bars
To improve digestion, you can soak your oats with the following instructions:
- Place the oats in a bowl and cover them with water.
- Add a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar or whey.
- Soak overnight on the counter.
- In the morning, rinse them thoroughly in a colander or sieve.
- Dry the soaked oats in the oven or dehydrator by following the same instructions you did for dehydrating elderberries. You can raise the temperature on the dehydrator to dry them more quickly.
- If you’d like to use the oven, preheat it to 350F/177C and toast the oats for about 8 minutes.
If your bars aren’t holding together, return the oat mixture to the bowl and add another 1/4 cup of melted coconut butter to it. Mix thoroughly and re-press into the dish.
Return the dish to the refrigerator for 4 hours.
- If you would like to bake these granola bars, heat the oven to 325F/163C and bake for 30 minutes.
As explained in the article, if you dehydrate your berries as we’ve outlined, they get hot enough to render the berries harmless. However, if you’re still concerned, you may bake the bars.
Grow and Use Your Own Elderberries
Elderberry bushes grow easily in most backyard gardens and wild in many areas in the U.S. The bushes produce a profusion of berries every year. While elderberry bushes can take up a substantial amount of space, the benefits they provide make them well worth it.
Learning to use elderberries and other wellness herbs is something everyone can do. Perhaps this is your year to plant some of your own! Even if you decide to purchase your elderberries, you can certainly learn to use them in your home with confidence. The Herbal Academy also has a basic herbalist course that they offer for free, if you’d like to get started.
Elderberry Articles
Elderberry Chocolate Torte – Low Carb!
Foraging for Elderberries
Soothing Cooling Elderberry Lollipops for Kids & Adults
Black Elderberry Gummies Recipe for Kids (And Adults!)
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These are lovely I bet they taste fantastic and full of goodies!
Thank you for stopping by, Vladka! They are, indeed, delicious.
I never thought about using elderberries in granola! What an easy way to get an extra dose of elderberry! I’ve been a little hesitant about using store-bought dried elderberries because it’s hard to know if they were dried with enough heat to completely deactivate the alkaloids. I’m sure I’m being way more cautious than needed! Maybe next year, I can forage enough to make my regular amount of syrup and also heat dry some to have available for recipes like this! 🙂
Great point about the heat processing! If you do manage to forage enough, these dry well on a screen in the air. I use a screen door covered with a fitted sheet elevated on sawhorses. I think I remember you guys are moving but once you land, they grow SO easily in the backyard garden.
Thanks so much for stopping by!
I can’t imagine that commercial dried elderberries would be done just air dried the slow way. You should be able to check the website.
Thanks for stopping by! I’m not exactly sure what part you’re commenting on but you can buy commercial elderberries and use them. If you want to be sure they’ve been raised to the proper temperature, you can ask the purveyor – maybe that’s what you were advising?
You can also pop them in the oven to get them up to temperature.
These sound mouthwatering…and they will hopefully help to keep the flu away! Thank for this recipe 🙂
Great point! Maybe I should have called them “Flu Fighting Granola Bars”!
These look delicious! I haven’t thought of putting elderberry in baked goods like this. I’m going to try these this weekend!
So glad you liked the recipe, Shannon! Elderberries are lovely for baking because they have a berry flavor that’s not too overwhelming. Let me know if you make something with them and how it turns out!
I can only imagine how delicious these must be! I love the taste of elderflower 🙂
The elder berries taste a bit like blueberries in these granola bars. They’re delicious!
My kids will go nuts for these! Can’t wait to make them!
I hope you enjoy them, Jess – thanks for stopping by!
Raw berries have tons of arsenic and should never be eaten raw . Always have to be cooked for at least 20 mins or so.
Yes, good reminder! Hence the drying for 8 hours at nearly 200 degrees. When I air dry any I’m sure to use them only for syrup which requires long cook times.
What a unique recipe, and they sound amazing!!!
They are quite delicious, I must say. Thanks for stopping by!
Elderberries are my favorite for cold and flu season!
Mine, too – if you HAVE to take “medicine”, at least it can be tasty!