Homemade Milky Way Bars

Make healthier homemade Milky Way bars perfect for Halloween! This dairy-free recipe uses simple ingredients to create delicious candy bars without refined sugar, plus the easy nougat and caramel both require zero cooking for an easy chocolate bar treat!

A week away from halloween means it’s time to put all things pumpkin spice on pause and focus our attention on CANDY. Because pumpkin will still be here long into November, but the end of this month should be all about spooky sweet homemade candy treats. We’ve tackled quite a few of the candy classic copycat recipes over the years—butterfingers, 3 musketeers, twix, 100 grand, kit kat, etc.—but somehow we skipped over an absolute essential. The chewy gooey nougat + caramel + chocolate magic that is: Milky Way!

How To Make Homemade Milky Way Bars

Nothing about this no-bake Milky Way method is traditional. There is no butter in the caramel, no egg whites in the nougat, and no heat or candy thermometers required for making either. The ingredients are a little bit healthier and the process is MUCH easier, but these homemade Milky Ways still capture all the creamy, chewy, sweet chocolate decadence of this fun-sized favorite. My daughter isn’t quite old enough to taste test them yet and give them the “kid approved” stamp of approval, but my husband was a BIG fan. So let’s break down the how-to…

The Egg-Free No-Cook Nougat

The nougat layer is meant to be a sweet, chewy, airy-ish base for this candy bar, which without egg whites is hard to pull off authentically. So I got a little creative to bring you a vegan version of “nougat” that is made with completely different ingredients but still serves the same purpose in the whole of the Milky Way bar structure. The key: coconut flour. Anytime you are in need of no-bake fluffy-ness, coconut flour is the answer. Its texture is like no other, and while finicky for baking it’s magic in no-bake recipes. Along with the coconut flour, we are using medjool dates for sweetness, salt to balance out all the caramel sweetness to come, and coconut milk to make it all blend and set.

The Dairy-Free Caramel

Again we are breaking tradition with this no-cook variation of caramel made without dairy or cream or traditional sugar. This is a simple stir-it-up recipe sweetened with maple syrup, but it’s so sweet and lush and gooey-delicious. The base is a combination of almond butter (or another nut/seed butter), maple syrup, and coconut oil. Then we add in vanilla and salt for extra flavor and sweet/salty balance. Stir it all up until it’s super smooth, and then layer it on top of the nougat. The best part is that thanks to the coconut oil it sets firm enough to easily coat in chocolate, but then re-softens into gooey goodness once you take them out of the fridge to eat.

The Dark Chocolate Coating

This is seriously the simplest step, but also the messiest if you are anything like me. Getting that full 360° coverage without lots of fingerprints in your chocolate is a challenge. But the good news is even imperfect chocolate coverage still tastes just as good so don’t worry too much. My best tip is to dip the bottoms first, let them harden, and then coat the top and sides. Also freezing the bars for 30 minutes before coating will help the caramel be extra firm and the chocolate set extra fast.

Homemade Milky Way Bars Nutrition

This is by far the highest fiber candy bar you will encounter on halloween thanks to the fruity nougat base made with medjool dates. They are also refined sugar free with more natural sweeteners like maple syrup and dates that you can feel better about giving to your kids (and yourself!) Each bar is much bigger than your standard trick-or-treating fun-sized bar, but still under 250 calories per serving.

Recipe FAQs

If you try these Homemade Milky Way Bars, let me know what you think by leaving a comment or rating below! Be sure to follow along on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook for even more yummy recipes!

Print