Healthy No-Bake Oatmeal Fudge Bars
You’ve gotta try this super easy Oatmeal Fudge Bars recipe! It’s the perfect breakfast or midday treat to satisfy your sweet tooth — totally guilt-free.
One bite and you’d never know it’s gluten free, dairy free, and vegan too! Best of all, these squares of rich chocolate and comforting oats are super easy to make and don’t require any baking whatsoever. All you need are eight simple ingredients, a few bowls, and a big appetite!
Thanks to Nuts.com for sponsoring this post, and thank YOU for supporting the brands that keep Desserts With Benefits going! All opinions are mine and mine alone.
In the first bite, you are instantly hit with the intense dark chocolate flavor from the fudge filling. Then, you get the heartiness from the oats, crunch from the walnuts, and slight sweetness from the pure maple syrup.
Unlike your typical Oatmeal Fudge Bars recipe, this is made entirely without the white sugar, brown sugar, sweetened condensed milk, eggs, and butter! So go ahead, have another bar 😉
As the recipe’s base, I used a mixture of oat flour, oats, coconut oil, and walnut pieces from Nuts.com.
I used a combo of both oat flour and oats because these are called “Oatmeal Fudge Bars” and I really wanted a pronounced oatmeal flavor. The oat flour acts just like regular flour and works as a great base ingredient to bind all of the ingredients together, while the oats provide a nice chewy texture. The walnuts add an uber rich, buttery flavor and some crunch to every bite. Then, the coconut oil and maple syrup help bind it all together, providing both flavor and natural sweetness. All of these ingredients together provide a ton of nutrition in these bars. We get healthy fats, whole grains, slow-digesting fiber, and low-glycemic sweetness (no sugar rush and sugar crashes here)!
Next up, the filling — made with just 2 ingredients: chocolate chips and coconut milk!
You can see in the cooking video above how smooth, thick, and delicious the filling gets after you whisk together the melted chocolate and coconut milk! It’s really like magic 😉
These Oatmeal Fudge Bars will surely be your new go-to healthy dessert recipe.
Or snack…
Or breakfast… 😉
Healthy No-Bake Oatmeal Fudge Bars
Ingredients
Base
- 1⅓ cups Nuts.com Oat Flour
- 1 cup Nuts.com Rolled Oats (+ 2 tbs for topping)
- ¼ cup Nuts.com Coconut Oil (melted)
- ¼ cup Pure Maple Syrup
- ½ tbs Vanilla Extract
- ¼ tsp Salt
- 1 cup Nuts.com Walnut Pieces
Fudge Layer
- 1lb bag (3 cups) Nuts.com Dark Chocolate Chips
- ⅓ cup Light Coconut Milk
Instructions
- Spray an 8x8” brownie pan with cooking spray and line with parchment paper both ways for easy removal later.
- In a large bowl, stir together the oat flour and 1 cup of the oats. Add the melted coconut oil, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and salt. Mix until thoroughly combined
- Fold in the walnuts pieces. Reserve 1⅓ cups of the mixture into a small bowl. Dump the remaining base mixture into the prepared pan and flatten it out.
- In a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl, add the chocolate chips. Microwave at 30-seconds intervals, stirring between each one, until completely melted. Whisk in the coconut milk. Mixture should thicken and turn into a smooth ganache. Spread the mixture over the base (I used an offset spatula).
- To the bowl with the reserved base mixture, stir in the remaining 2 tbs of oats. Sprinkle this over the chocolate layer and press it into the surface. Feel free to press in some more walnut pieces if you're craving some additional crunch! Cover and refrigerate overnight.
- Bring the bars out of the fridge 20 minutes before slicing to soften. Slice, serve, and enjoy!
These delicious bars are soft, fudgy, sweet, and delicious, it’s hard to believe they’re gluten free, dairy free, vegan, and don’t require any baking. Perfect for the hot summer months ahead.
And if you’re in Texas, like me, then these bars are perfect RIGHT NOW. It’s already so hot out, and I believe all next week the temperature will be in the triple digits. I don’t think I’ll be stepping near my oven for the next few months… I’ll be indulging in all the no-bake treats my heart can handle!
Enjoy!
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With love and good eats,
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– Jess
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Indulge − no strings attached!
Calories?
It’s too bad that the nutrition information wasn’t provided. I plugged in the ingredients into a recipe calorie calculator (www.supertracker.usda.gov) and came up with about 250 calories per serving. The calculator has some shortcomings. It limited the cups of chocolate chips to TWO. It didn’t have 1/3 cup increments. If these calculations are incorrect, I would guess the actual calorie count is higher.
Try the MyFitnessPal app. You can enter in recipes and it gives all nutrition information 😊
Took me awhile, but MyFitnessPal says 1 serving (1 bar) is 276 calories.
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These look very yummy! I would slather peanut butter RIGHT on top of each one or have a bar (or two, or three) with a side of soy milk ice cream!
wow Yummmmm
Just made these and they are YUMMY! I only let them set for about 6 hours in the fridge (does anyone actually wait overnight to try their awesome new fudge dessert?!) but they were already PERFECT and so satisfying. Hard and dense yet chewy and smooth.
I wanted mine to have zero sugar, so I made a few substitutions: instead of maple syrup I used a combination of erythritol (both granular and confectioners), hemp milk, and a little bit of Pamela’s baking binder (potato starch + psyllium). Instead of the chocolate chips, I used a combination of 100% chocolate and erythritol, plus extra coconut milk to balance out the texture of the erythritol. I also used sunflower seeds instead of walnuts- just because they were all I had on hand, and I added a little maple extract to balance out to non-sweetness of sunflower seeds compared to walnuts.
They still came out looking just like the picture here, and even better than I had hoped! Thank you, Jessica, your blog is becoming one of my go-to’s 🙂
YAYAYAY! You have no idea how happy your comment just made me! Your subs sound great too (love the sunflower seeds). Have you tried Lily’s sugar-free chocolate chips? Next time I make these bars I’m gonna use those. But genius idea with the 100% cacao chocolate + erythritol!
Have an awesome weekend Jillian! 🙂
it would be awesome if you could give your sugar sub amounts …I would love to make these for my M in law who is gluten, dairy and sugar free. 🙂
Jiilian, can you please provide measurments for your subsitutions for those (like me) who don’t bake? I am gluten-free, dairy[-free, and doing my darndest to be sugar-free but have no idea how to do ratios, etc.
This does look good. Just a warning to be sure to make your own flour from rolled oats. Rolled oats have been heated and steamed to kill pathogens; flour generally has not. Also, I wouldn’t eat more than one at a time, because eating raw oats and flour can cause intestinal blockages. Wouldn’t stop me eating them – I’d just go easy.
Is the coconut milk from a can or the kind from a carton or bottle?
I’ve used both. From a can was better to be honest 😊
Can you use regular milk instead of coconut milk for the fudge layer?
I haven’t tried it but feel free to test it out!! I’d probably recommend using whole milk or half and half.
Can you freeze them? ^_^
Of course!! Just be sure to store them in a tightly sealed container, and thaw them completely in the fridge 🙂
280 calories per slice (16 servings) if anyone was wondering.
Thanks for the calories info 🙂
These bar taste great.
Unfortunately, that’s too many calories for an oat bar that I would eat as a snack 🙁
All i can say is the sugar content alone is 15grams, no sugar added to recipe but sugar in atleast 2 of the ingredients.
Excellent point about the amount of sugar in the actual ingredients Raymond 🙂
Just made it with my 3 y.o son. It is very tasty! We put regular whole milk in the fudge and it turned great.
Yay!! So glad you both liked the recipe Natasha!! 💖
These are really great! I did not like the ingredients in the chips so I made my own chocolate. Six ounce bar of organic baking chocolate (unsweetened) and chopped fine with Serrated knife (best for this purpose). Gently melt 4 Tbs coconut oil in a pan and add 5 -6 Tbs of Honey or Maple Syrup (to taste) and stir until coconut oil is dissolved and take off burner and stir in chocolate stirring until all melted. Add 1 tsp. Vanilla. Blend with Immersion stick or Mixer (because ingredients don’t blend well unless you do.) Stir in Coconut Milk and spread on bars and sprinkle on topping and refrigerate until hard. I also substituted 2 Tbs Peanut butter once gently melted with 2 Tbs Coconut oil for the crust and it worked fine and used Pecans instead. Great Recipe!! You can also drop little drops of cold peanut butter onto the chocolate spread before adding the crust just for a different flavor sometimes!
Hi,
I already made this. How can I ensure that there are no microbes? Is it okay to heat the oats and flour first before mixing?
Clester
If you’re concerned about germs you can try roasting the oats and flour first but make sure not to burn it!
Is the coconut milk from a can or the kind from a carton or bottle?
Coconut milk from the can 🙂
I would like to know the sugar count as well…On the chocolate chips are they “sweet regular choc chips?” On the milks this looks thick, so I would guess canned coconut milk?
Yes, the coconut milk is canned coconut milk. I use the light version because it’s thick and creamy but less calories and fat (and just as delicious!).
For the chocolate chips, you can use any kind you like really. If you want less sugar, use Lily’s sugar free chocolate chips! 🙂
I’ve made these more than 6+ times for my bf he absolutely loves them.
I add shreaded coconut and use cocoa chocolate chips and almonds instead of walnuts his request.
I seem to need too add a lil bit more coconut oil and pure maple syrup bcus I add these. I always have left over canned coconut milk I usually try to put the date with a sharpie on a double zip bag to reserve it for next time. We usually find the coconut milk in the foreign food isle asian foods etc. I only used 2 cups of cocoa chocolate chips bcus that’s how much comes in the bag. I loved the idea of making oat flour I make mine in my bullet. I use all whole food or low cal or pure maple syrup. I’m sure they have the calories but, also u must take into consideration that most of these ingredients are healthy and allot better for us than store bought.
He loves them I do too but to be honest I have to stop myself from eating them bcus they are so yummy mine turn out like almond joys don’t make them often but,I do make them he loves them any time of the day I have to refrigerate after making so they are harder and easier to cut. Thank u for this recipe ❤️ keeps the chocolate 🍫 love alive when we really crave chocolate. I suggest the cocoa garidelli cocoa dark chocolate chips especially for the calorie counters but u can def adjust any of the ingredients once u understand the process like I did. Thanks again 5 stars. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Brooke!! You just made my entire weekend!! 💖 I’m so glad you liked the recipe and have made them a few times 🙂
Adding shredded coconut is GENIUS, and subbing almonds for walnuts sounds just as delicious. Almond Joy bars, yummmm!!
yum, these look so good! Does the coconut milk give them a coconut-y flavor at all?
I’d say there’s a hint of coconut flavor, but it’s mostly all just fudgy chocolate 😉
The oats and walnuts mixture crumbles and breaks too easily. What can I do to bind them better?
Grind the oats and walnuts smaller so they’re more “flour-like” and they won’t crumble 🙂