Every week in my house, I prepare homemade no-bake snacks, made from oats, nut butter, and maple syrup. This is my favorite combination of ingredients that you will often find in my no-bake dessert recipes, like my 3-ingredient peanut butter oatmeal balls or my healthy no-bake oatmeal bars. In terms of texture, I created these oat cups to be a mix between my no-bake peanut butter energy balls and a no-bake peanut butter bar. The bottom of the cups is soft, chewy, packed with maple and peanut butter flavors and bits and pieces of oats. In the center, a dollop of creamy peanut butter is topped with a crunchy dark chocolate layer on top. The taste is close to my vegan peanut butter cups, packed with peanut butter flavors. But oats and flax meal add crunch and texture.
Why You Will Love This No-Bake Snack
It’s:
Quick and easy Healthy and filling Tastes amazing for Peanut butter lovers Dairy-free and refined sugar-free Kids-friendly healthy snack
Ingredients To Make No-Bake Peanut Butter Oat Cups
You need very simple ingredients to make no-bake snacks like these no-bake oatmeal cups. The key is to get a muffin pan and paper liners or a silicone muffin pan.
Old-Fashioned Oats – This ingredient adds texture to the cups. It is coarse and thick but a little less absorbent than quick oats. Feel free to use gluten-free certified oats if you need them. Quick Oats are the finer version of oats, and in no-bake desserts, they absorb moisture more than regular oats, which holds the ingredients together nicely. Flax Meal – Most no-bake oatmeal recipes won’t add any flax meal. I do because it’s high in fiber and binds the ingredients together, making the no-bake treats less soft and chewier. You can skip or swap for chia seed meal or oat flour. Maple Syrup or any liquid sweetener you have on hand like agave syrup, coconut nectar, or rice syrup. Peanut Butter is the crucial ingredient in this recipe. Make sure your nut butter is natural without added oil or added sugar. The recipe works with any nut butter, like almond butter, or seed butter, like sunflower seed butter, for a nut-free option. Vanilla Extract for flavor Salt to enhance the chocolate flavor. Don’t add salt if your peanut butter is already salted. Dark Chocolate Chips create a crunchy chocolate layer on top of the cups. Coconut Oil, or plant-based butter, is used to melt the chocolate chips.
Making The No-Bake Peanut Butter Oatmeal Layer
The technique to make a no-bake dessert is pretty basic and simple. All you need is to line a 12-hole mini muffin pan with paper liners – that’s how you will shape the no-bake oatmeal cups.
Expert Tips For No-Bake Treats
Use fresh peanut butter – If your jar is a few weeks old, the peanut butter will be hard, dry, and too difficult to stir with the remaining ingredients. Pack the mixture firmly in the paper cups – This is important or the cups will fall apart when you remove the paper liner. Keep the cups small using mini muffin trays – Large oatmeal cups are fragile and break easily. Use paper liners – Even if you are using a muffin silicone pan, add the paper liners or the cups get difficult to unmold.
