Ready To Eat Food For Travel: Homemade & Healthy Granola Bar Recipe
Written by Jaillan Yehia
I’m always on the lookout for healthy and portable snacks to take with me to the airport, and on train journeys – or even to carry in my handbag to stop me getting hangry.
Probably because I was once given the following advice:
Hunger is the cause of most conflict; even on a short journey, always take a snack.
I took that advice to heart.
Why Make Your Own Healthy Ready To Eat Travel Food?
I’ve tried buying all the usual packaged ready to eat food for travel that you find in the supermarket aisles – but sadly a quick glance at the sugar content makes you realise that you’re not being as virtuous as you think by eating those snacks (which doesn’t mean I never eat them!)
So I started making my own granola for breakfast a few years ago (it’s crazy how easy it is) and recently I’ve become more into food and juice as medicine after trips to an Ayurveda retreat in Sri Lanka and doing a brilliant juice detox in Portugal.
Ayurvedic herbs at Barberyn Resort in Sri Lanka
Like a lot of people I also add tons of healthy powders to various aspects of my diet, from spirulina to ground up chia seeds and I’ve been drinking green tea by the bucketload for as long as I can remember.
So I was pretty happy to find this recipe for natural granola bars, from a specialist matcha and premium green tea seller, and as a bit of a health food fan, I thought it was cool that it included matcha powder in the recipe.
Matcha is basically the whole leaf ground up into a powder – said to contain 137 times the amount of antioxidants in a cup of green tea – and with a lot less trips to the bathroom!
This is everything you should need to make a batch of 12-15 ready to eat granola bars for your travels:
After years of finding recipes online which called for American style cups I got these colourful cooking cups for my kitchen
American Measuring Cups
Large Bowl
Parchment Paper
Wooden Spoon
Ingredients:
- 2 cups of rolled oats (gluten-free if required). I’d recommend getting jumbo ones for a chunkier feel
- 1 cup of pumpkin seeds (I’m obsessed with pumpkin seeds and pumpkin seed oil, and they are said to prevent prostate cancer in men, so I always encourage guys to snack on them)
- 1 ½ cups of any puffed rice cereal (depending on your dietary restrictions and preferences you can use quinoa instead)
- ½ cup dried fruits, roughly chopped (sultanas, raisins, figs, dates & prunes work well. Also try cranberries)
- ¼ teaspoon of sea salt
- 1 tablespoon of matcha powder
- 3 tablespoons of maple syrup (after living in Canada I always have a supply of the good stuff in my cupboard!)
- 1/3 cup of brown rice malt syrup – Biona do a good one, available at Ocado. If you don’t have this just use a little extra maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons of coconut oil
- ½ cup of tahini (being of Arabic origin, I usually have this in the cupboard for making hummus)
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Cooking Method:
- Preheat your oven to 160°C.
- Combine your oats and pumpkin seeds and spread them on a baking sheet. Pop them in the centre of the oven to bake for 10-15 minutes or until the oats are golden. Stir them a couple of times during baking to make sure they cook evenly.
- While baking the oats and seeds, combine the brown rice malt syrup (if using it), maple syrup, tahini, coconut oil and vanilla in a small saucepan. Whisk the ingredients, but be careful not to overheat the mixture.
- In a large bowl add the cooled oats and seeds to your dried fruit, puffed rice or quinoa cereal, salt and matcha powder. Pour the wet ingredients in and mix quickly to combine.
- Next pour the mixture into a lined brownie tin (line with parchment to be kind to yourself when removing the granola bars later). Press the mixture down firmly (especially in the corners).
- Refrigerate for a few hours to let the mixture become firm, then remove from the pan and slice into bars.
Now you’ve got a great super-healthy snack to take on your travels; I usually take some homemade goodies like this with me to the airport to avoid wasting money and calories on pre-packaged nasty plane food, when I know I’d rather have something healthy on board for my journey.
It takes a bit of pre-planning but having your own healthy and ready to eat food for travel in your fridge helps you to stay healthy on the road.
P.s. Your granola bars can be stored in the fridge for up to two weeks – but let’s face it they probably won’t last that long.
Tags: recipe
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