Peanut Butter Oatmeal Balls

My daughter came home from school on the first day of school and said that her teacher said they could eat healthy snacks in class. She was very excited, she has not been able to have snacks in class since she was in kindergarten and she is now in 6th grade. I want her to have some different healthy options, so some days she can take fruit or vegetables, other days she can take homemade snacks like these peanut butter oatmeal bars. They are healthy, delicious and she loves them so they are perfect!

We decided to make big batch and individually wrap them in plastic wrap then put them in the freezer. They last quite a while in the freezer, she will have plenty for the next few weeks. They do not take very long to make, the only hard part is after you have made several, your hands may be too sticky to form more balls. If this happens, simply wash your hands and resume making balls. I had to wash my hands three times when I made the last batch. But it is much easier to wash my hands than it is to try to make more balls when they are sticking to my hands, they just crumble apart then.

For my recipe, I used crunchy peanut butter. It is a favorite in my family, but you can use creamy if you prefer. I also used flax seeds, which are add to the healthiness and no one has complained about their taste, I will admit, I was a little worried about that at first. If your kids are like mine, anything that looks "different" is not acceptable and they will not eat it. Luckily, the flax seeds are small and not very noticeable.

This is a very hands on recipe. You can try to mix it with a spoon, I did at first, but I quickly realized that was not going to work. Instead, I used my hands to mix everything together, I wanted to make sure the honey and peanut butter did not clump up. Using my hands helped me come to the perfect mixture.

You can change the ingredients in this recipe very easily, sometimes we are chia seeds, sometimes we use peanut butter chips instead of chocolate chips, sometimes we do not use chips at all. You could really switch up the flavors by using butterscotch chips or other flavors, we have tried several variations and loved them all. Chia seeds add some excellent health benefits, and my kids did not know they were there! We use local honey, it is suppose to have the most health benefits and we can buy it at local farms.

If they seem crumbly when you try to form balls, you can put them in your hand and squeeze them tight, that usually works, if not, try to add a little more honey or peanut butter to get them to stick, sometimes not all of the ingredients combine well enough so it leaves the last few dry.