Homemade M&M® Granola Bars

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #ShareFunshine #CollectiveBias

Summer time is here and for me that means go, go, go! Summers are busier than the school year for my family. We spend a lot of time swimming, playing with friends, vacationing, and going on field trips in the summer. Most of which takes us away from the house.

I don’t know about you but when we are moving quickly in the morning trying to get out of the house I am normally going twenty directions at once and often get in the car to leave and realize I never ate breakfast. This happens more than I care to admit. LOL

Obviously I am in need of something easy to grab on the go. Granola bars are the perfect grab and go meal and I have found that taking the extra time to make them myself is totally worth it. I was at Sam’s Club last week on my weekly shopping adventure when I came across these bags of XXL M&M’s®. Have you ever seen such big bags? Oh my! YUM! I have a bit of a sweet tooth so my favorite way to make my granola bars is with M&M’s® so I had to get these! I couldn’t decide whether to get the M&M’s® Origional or the M&M’s® Peanut sooooo I got both! (I hear you can get bags of XXL M&M’s® Crispy too but my Sam’s Club was out.)

Now to put these M&M’s® to good use!

Homemade Granola Bars

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups crispy rice cereal
• 2 cups Quick Cooking Oats
• 1/2 cup Honey
• 1/2 cup Brown Sugar
• 1/2 cup Peanut Butter (smooth or crunchy)
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1/2 cup M&M’s® (original, peanut, or crispy)
• Optional: 1/2 cup raisins

First mix cereal, oats and optional raisins in a large bowl.

In a small saucepan, heat honey and brown sugar to a boil, stirring constantly.

Turn heat off and add peanut butter and vanilla and stir until blended.

Pour over cereal mixture and mix well. Add M&M’s® and mix thoroughly.

Press into a 9X13 greased baking dish. Cool and cut into 18 granola bars.

Individually wrap each granola bar with saran wrap or press in seal. Place in a gallon size bag or plastic container and keep in refrigerator to keep fresh longer. To be honest they never last long enough to get stale at my house:)

Now you have the perfect grab and go snack! Tastier than any store bought granola bar I promise! I also have lots of M&M’s® left over for lots more batches of granola bars, ice cream sundae toppings, M&M® cookies, trail mix, or just to eat by the handful on those days you just need a little chocolate!!!

What would you do with your XXL bag of M&M’s®?