How To Make Homemade Copycat KIND Bars

KIND Bars are the

snack bar

But KIND Bars are kind of budget-busting when I’ve got five dinners, seven breakfasts, and seven lunches to shop for my family of four. So I set to work making these snack bars at home. Yes, there are some specialty ingredients that are an up-front investment, but there’s still a huge cost savings.

KIND Bars are a nut- and seed-based snack bar akin to Lara Bars, Clif, or RX Bars, with the primary distinction that KIND Bar’s nuts and fruit are kept mostly whole instead of puréed. They are gluten-free, vegan, and low in sugar, while still being crunchy and sweet. This style of snack bar is wonderful for keeping in your bag or desk for that 3 p.m. slump or just as a healthy-ish treat.

• This recipe calls for brown rice syrup — you can usually find this at a health food store or order it online.
• The bars bake for 18 to 20 minutes at 325°F.
• Make sure you’ve got parchment paper on hand for making these sticky bars.

So, you scroll to the ingredient list and see whole nuts like almonds and walnuts ($), puffed rice and sesame seeds (also $) and then brown rice syrup ($$$) and you might be tempted to just open a new tab and order some KIND Bars in bulk from Amazon. Don’t, and here’s why: We ran a cost analysis using the prices of the ingredients versus KIND Bars at the grocery store and Amazon.

Our bar = $0.89 each
KIND Bars at the grocery store = $1.79; in bulk on Amazon = $1.22 a bar

Of course, we tallied up these totals based on the price of each ingredient per recipe, but we promise that once you make the first batch you’ll want to make another one, and you’ll already have the ingredients to do so.

These nut snack bars are held together by brown rice syrup, which is baked to set the bars and gives the nuts an almost candy-like coating, with some slight give. Here are the keys steps for that signature KIND Bar texture.

• Toast the nuts. Buy raw nuts and toast them yourself. Not only will the leftover nuts last longer, but the warm nuts help the brown rice syrup soften and coat the bars.
• Heat the brown rice syrup for better distribution. Brown rice syrup is thicker and stickier than honey or molasses, making it a real pain to pour out of the jar. Heating it for just 30 seconds in the microwave will make it easier to measure and give a more even coating to the nuts.
• Cool the bars in the pan. Once the bars are baked, cool them in the pan for at least 30 minutes before removing. Then cool completely — this can take a few hours — before slicing.
• Use a sharp, oiled knife to cut the bars. These bars are so sticky! Make sure you use a sharp knife and lightly coat it with nonstick spray before cutting.
• Chocolate dip, optional. Who are we kidding? Chocolate is never optional!

Once the chocolate has set on your KIND bars, you want to move them to longer-term storage. The bars are sticky, so parchment paper is best for wrapping individually. These bars keep best stored in the fridge or freezer, but they can be left unrefrigerated for about four days, at which point they become a bit softer but are still fine to eat.

So the next time you’re wishing you had a snack bar, chock-full of nuts, dipped in chocolate, and made entirely from scratch, you know exactly how to do it. It’s nice, right?