Crispy Honey Peanut-Oat Bites: An Easy Weeknight Dessert

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These Crispy Honey Peanut-Oat Bites are a super fun dessert that’s perfect for a weeknight treat or lunchbox surprise. Plus, they pack well, so they’re fun to bring on picnics, hikes, or to the pool.

Growing up, dessert was a sometimes thing. If my mom had made a batch of cookies or threw together an apple crisp, we would enjoy it, but it wasn’t an expectation that we would have something sweet at the end of every dinner. When my husband and I started dating, though, I was introduced to the idea that dessert could be an every-night event and, unsurprisingly, I quickly became a convert.

Everything in Moderation

When we first had kids, though, my own personal food demons started to panic about giving the kids dessert every night. Would this somehow make them addicted to sugar? Was I setting them up for unhealthy habits? How could I control the situation? Eventually, I calmed these panicked voices down and decided that, for our family, we would approach dessert with the same attitude we approached all foods: everything in moderation.

So, dessert became a daily offering. When they were little, I taught them about moderation by suggesting that we limit ourselves to one treat per day (with exceptions made for special events and holidays). As they have gotten older, though, I no longer track these things and trust that they can listen to their own bodies and make the choices that are right for them. This means that some days they eat an insane amount of sugar (usually when hanging out with friends), but most of the time the habit of one dessert a day has stuck.

As for what desserts are offered, we do a pretty solid mix of store-bought and homemade. Plus, with recipes like these Crispy Honey Peanut-Oat Bites which are super simple to make, offering a homemade dessert becomes much easier!

How to Make Crispy Honey Peanut-Oat Bites

With only 15 minutes of active time, these Crispy Honey Peanut-Oat Bites are perfect for a weeknight treat. Plus, they are simple enough that you can either have your kids make them with just a little oversight or completely on their own (there is a little bit of time at the stove, but no baking or sharp knives needed).

Another nice thing about these bites is that chances are good you have all the ingredients in your house right now. To make these bites you will need:

• Honey
• Peanut butter
• Coconut oil or butter
• Rolled oats
• Crisped rice cereal (like Rice Krispies)
• Ground cinnamon
• Salt
• Chocolate chips or Raisins

Mix Your Liquids

The first step in making the Crispy Honey Peanut-Oat Bites is to heat up your liquids and spices. To do this, place the honey, peanut butter, coconut oil or butter, cinnamon, and salt in a small saucepan. Heat the mixture on over a medium-low heat, stirring with a rubber spatula until the coconut oil or butter is melted and everything is well-combined.

Bonus tip: Measuring out sticky stuff like honey and peanut butter can be a pain. To make it easier, spray the inside of the measuring cup with some cooking spray. This little bit of oil will allow for those sticky ingredients to slide right out and into the pan.

Add in the Crunch

Once the liquids are combined, remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the oats and crispy rice cereal. You may hear some of the crispy rice cereal popping, that is totally fine, it is just the cereal coming into contact with the liquids. Once they are well combined, you’ll have a thick and sticky mixture (kind if reminiscent of rice krispie treat batter).

Add in the Chocolate or Raisins

If you are using chocolate chips, to avoid having them melt too much, wait a minute or two before you mix in the chocolate chips. And, if you want them to stay really whole and not at all melted (personally, I like mine somewhere in between), wait about 4 minutes before mixing them in.

If you are using raisins, you can stir them in immediately.

Other Mix-In Ideas: If you wanted to change up the mix-ins, you could also consider adding chopped nuts, pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, or even dried blueberries.

Forming the Bites

The bites will need to chill in the refrigerator for 15 minutes in order to solidify, so line a baking sheet with either a silicone mat or wax paper (this will prevent them sticking onto the baking sheet) and get ready to form the bites!

There are a couple of ways to do roll the bites. My favorite method is to use a cookie scoop because I find this is the easiest way to make them nice and compact. To do this, use your smallest cookie scoop to scoop up a portion of the mixture, then push the mixture up against the side of the saucepan to pack it tightly into the scoop. Then squeeze the scoop so that the mixture comes out in a nice, tight ball onto the baking sheet. Repeat this process, placing the bites relatively close together so that you can fit them all on one sheet.

If you don’t have a cookie scoop, you can also use the two-spoon method. To do this, scoop about 1 Tablespoon-worth of the mixture up with one spoon and use the other spoon to simultaneously scrape the mixture off onto the silicone mat or wax paper, while also packing it together to form a tight ball.

Bonus tip: If they are not packing together as tightly as you would like, scoop out your bites, dampen your hands (this will prevent sticking), and then roll each bite between your damp palms. 

Once you have formed all 18-20 bites, place the baking sheet in the refrigerator for 15 minutes so that they can chill and get nice and firm. Then remove them to a plate to serve right away or store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.