I’ve been kind of obsessed with cereal desserts lately. Just for about the past 21 years or so.
I don’t know why I love them so much. I mean they are usually ridiculously fast and easy. And they’re typically light and and crunchy. And they often require licking delicious messy fingers after making and after eating. And they are always customizable with mix-ins. Nope, can’t figure out what’s appealing about all that.
So cereal isn’t exactly a ‘whole food’, but there are definitely healthier options when it comes to boxed breakfast crunchies. The less sugar and flavorings the better. And plain cereals are more fun anyways because you can flavor, top, and tasty them up yourself! I like to think of them in 3 categories: Os, rice crisps, and flakes.
I have tried many, many healthy cereal brands to find the fewest ingredient, best tasting options for each category, and here are my current top picks:
– One Degree Organic Sprouted Ancient Grain Os. Great taste, great crunch, and I love that they are sweetened with coconut sugar. Note that they are not gluten free though.
– Erewhon Crispy Brown Rice Cereal. This is my go-to cereal, I always have a box around. There are only 3 ingredients: brown rice, brown rice syrup, and salt! They do come in a salt-free version too, but I think the salted ones have a better, more balanced flavor.
– Barbara’s Bakery Organic Corn Flakes. These are made with non-GMO corn and sweetened with fruit juice, which I love! They are very light, like traditional corn flakes, not thick like many other healthy flake cereals.
Now onto these Strawberry O Bars!
I don’t think I need to say much to convince you, strawberries + chocolate + crunch is an awesome combo and everybody knows it. Making them is easy, and involves lots of sticky chocolate fingers to “clean”. After baking, snack them, share them, don’t try to save them for next week. These bars don’t last very long without turning soggy (it’s the strawberries’ fault), so devouring them within a couple of days is a requirement!
Strawberry O Bars
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 9 bars 1x
Ingredients
- 3 cups O cereal
- 1/2 cup brown rice syrup
- 2 tbsps cacao powder
- 6 medium strawberries (chopped)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 300F.
- In a large bowl, mix together the cereal and cacao powder until evenly coated.
- Add the brown rice syrup, and mix until everything is chocolatey and sticky and messy.
- Add the chopped strawberries and toss to combine.
- Line a 8×8″ square pan with parchment paper. Transfer the chocolate O mixture into the pan. Press down firmly. You can use a piece of wax paper on top so it won’t stick to your fingers.
- Bake for 30 minutes at 300F.
- Cool, then slice.
- Store in the fridge for up to 2 days. They will become soggy if stored too long due to the moisture in the berries.
Are you a cereal dessert lover or a serial dessert devourer?
Okay, another thing I love to the high heavens is cereal! Haha! I’ve been wanted to do a top favorite cereals post since I did my top favorite GF products post a few weeks ago. But I have SUCH a hard time narrowing it down! Like cereal is so good….sometimes when I wake up, all I crave is a huge bowl of crunchy goodness! Lame creativity wise, but soooooooo yummy belly and soul wise 😉
And I haven’t had any type of cereal treat since I stopped being able to eat the packaged rice crispie treats why back when 😉
These look soooo good <3 These would actually be really awesome with Lovn Grown Foods Chocolate Super O's (Which are made with BEANS!)
XOXO
You should totally do a cereal roundup, even if it epically long, because I love trying new cereals and I know I haven’t found all the best GF ones yet! Seriously I can go to the cereal aisle and spend like 15 minutes just browsing and trying to decide which box to buy…I usually buy like 3 😀 Yup I could eat cereal all day, but your right not exactly super creative and IG worthy 🙂 haha
Yes! I forgot about the Love Grown Foods cereals, they don’t have them anywhere around here so I haven’t tried them yet. But if you say they’re good I believe you! This is why you NEED to do a roundup!!!
Omg! I know! I always gaze at the cereals every time to see if a new one popped up! And the top of my fridge has about 12 boxes (not all mine) but yea 😉
And Vitacost has love grown’s cereals! That’s how I got my hands on them!!! TRY THEM!
O and I will do that round-up!
These are so cute and perfect for the kids! And yes the flavor combo is awesome! We’re big cereal fans around here too. We like the single ingredient bags from Nature’s Path. They have puffed corn, kamut, rice, and millet and then we tasty them up ourselves with dried fruits, seeds,nuts, etc.
Thanks Melissa, again I share the food preferences of people under 10 😀 haha! I really wish I could get into the puffed cereals because they are so simple and pure, but I just miss the crunch factor 🙁 Maybe I just need to tasty them up more!
Yessssssss! Cereal in general is just the bomb.com. These look SO good! I need to get myself some brown rice syrup, it seems to be the secret of most cereal treats.
I totally feel the same way about cereal! After seeing your corn flake bars I was really craving a cereal something or other 🙂 I love cereal treats with date paste too, but they are usually chewier. To get that classic rice crispy crunch brown rice syrup is definitely the secret!
no bake recipes are so handy and especially ones involving strawberries! cute little treat Natalie x
Thanks Petra! These are actually baked, I tried making them no bake style, but they fell apart 😀 But still easy!
Oh my gosh those sound good! I don’t think that they would last much longer around here than two days 😀 I can nearly taste the combination while reading this – chocolate and strawberries are probably the world’s best combination anyway, and then add some cereal crunch to it and you can never go wrong!
Yeah I don’t think the 2 days thing should be a problem 😉 And now that I think about it, if there were any left I would just crumble them up, pour on some milk, and call it breakfast! haha
Hahaha, that’s an awesome way to use them up! 😀
Umm yeah I’m pretty sure I would be flat out addicted to these. Cereal is pretty much gone if I’m around – I can’t keep my hand out of the box!! This is a great way to enjoy it 😉 Love the chocolate and strawberry comboe
Between the chocolate and the cereal, these definitely have the potential to be addictive! I think cereal boxes have some sort of magic in them, because the contents always disappear much faster than seemingly possible 😉 By the handful, with milk, in a dessert like this, there’s really no wrong way to cereal ya know! Thanks Sam <3
Oh, I used to be an absolute cereal fiend. I actually liked that allbran cereal. Uber-crunchy!, Not to mention my granola-making phase…..I used to eat it dry as a snack actually, I liked selecting extra-large flakes and crunching away, is that weird?
Nope not weird at all! I too have a love of super crunchy bran flakes or flax flakes or all those cereals most people call cardboard 😀 haha Granola is amazing too, I’ve never actually eaten granola with milk, its too damn good as a dry snack! Thanks Max <3
These look really good! I love making quick and easy desserts lke this. My favorite cereal recipe is Chex Mix, and I don’t make it too often because I have zero self-control. 🙂
Haha cereal desserts and snacks are always a test of my self control too…and they usually disappear much faster than they should! I think it’s the light airy nature of cereal, makes it seem as if you aren’t eating very much and then poof it’s gone 🙂
Man does this look good! If you hand me a tray of these, then I will lose complete self control. these look great, and I think I’ll have to try these!
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Well like I said you gotta eat them quick for optimum crunchiness, so losing a little self control is okay 🙂 Thanks Kennedy, and I hope you bake a batch for yourself!
Can I say both a lover and devourer?! I love the crunch factor!! We’re big fans of the sprouted grains cereal you mentioned, but ever since we discovered Love Grown Foods Power O’s (more specifically the chocolate one) Willow is obsessed. It does have dried cane syrup, so we limit consumption. This dessert sounds amazing! Chocolate + strawberries = ❤️ Can’t wait to try this, I know Willow would devour this!
It seems like Willow has very good tastes, and I really need to try Love Grown Foods cereals, especially those chocolatey ones! I try to stick to non-flavored cereals, but sometimes you just need chocolate crunchiness 😉 My chocolate cereal treat is usually the Envirokids Koala Crisps, but trying new cereals is one of my favorite foodie adventures! Thanks Mandy 🙂
My kids would love these! (Who am I kidding – I would love these!) And so easy too! I’ve never heard of One Degree before…I’ll have to look. They sound incredible. Great recipe!
Love, love cereal too…it is total comfort food to me! These are super cute and totally remind me of rice crispy treats, but of course, way healthier! I love that you added fresh strawberries….such a lovely idea Natalie! I could eat an entire batch of these!
Yes it is such comfort food and sometimes it’s the only thing that hits the spot! Switch in rice crispies for the Os and take out the chocolate and they would be rice crispy treats, which I LOVE too 🙂 Thanks Brandi!
Strawberries!! Oh my! I’m speechless. Cearal bars WITH strawberries…you are amazing! Definitely need to try these!
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Haha thanks Vanessa! Cereal bars are one of the most unsophisticated but most delicious snacks around! I just gotta find ways to make them in all different flavors so it gives me an excuse to bake with cereal as much as possible 😉