If you’d like to order dried fruits, nuts, or superfood, check out our local co-op to see what’s available now or order through our store.

I’ve been taking superfood every day since I found that it made my nearly non-stop headaches go away completely. That was almost two years ago, and outside of an occasional headache when I’m tired or sick, I really haven’t had headaches since then.

My challenge for myself this summer was to create a superfood snack bar that’s easy to pack for travel or car trips. Something that tastes great, isn’t fussy, and eliminates the mess of trying to take superfood powder in the car, plane, or hotel.

After a few complete flops involving unnecessary complications, namely the freezer and dehydrator, I came up with something very simple AND very good!
Apricot Superfood Bars

Make these snack bars with the superfood, and they’re a “nutritional bar.” Without, and they’re a simple go-to snack bar that’s easy to make, easy to grab, and easy to enjoy.

With a little creativity, you can make a bunch of different flavors too. We’ve experimented enough to have three favorites: cherry, banana, and apricot. I have to warn you, though, that the banana version is best without the superfood. The other two flavors mask it much better.

Banana Bread LaraBars
The basic instructions are the same for all three flavors, and the proportions of dried fruit to nuts are pretty much the same too, so you could make up new recipes just by using different kinds of dried fruit and nuts. Here are our favorite three flavors so far. The directions are below all three of the ingredient lists.

Cherry

1/4 cup pitted dates
1/4 cup dried cherries (We tried both sweet cherries and unsweetened tart cherries here. Both were good, but the tart cherries imparted a more intense cherry flavor.)
1/3 cup almonds
2 teaspoons – 2 tablespoons superfood (Optional) Start with less, and experiment to find your sweet spot. We use the full 2 TBS.

Apricot

1/2 cup dried apricots
1/3 cup almonds
2 teaspoons – 2 tablespoons superfood (Optional) Start with less, and experiment to find your sweet spot. We use the full 2 TBS.
Apricot Superfood Bars

Banana

1/4 cup pitted dates
1/4 cup dehydrated bananas
1/3 cup almonds, pecans, or a combination
Banana Snack Bars

*The dehydrated bananas in this recipe need to be flexible, chewy bananas that you’ve made at home, NOT store bought banana chips. Either use a dehydrator or lay a sliced banana out on a greased cookie sheet and dry in the oven at 175 degrees for 2-3 hours or until dry like a raisin.
Dehydrated Bananas

Directions

1. Grind all the nuts to a coarse powder. I use my VitaMix for this step, but you could also use a food processor fitted with an ‘S’ blade, a nut mill, or blender. If you’re adding superfood, add it once the nuts are ground, and then turn the machine on for a few more seconds to mix the superfood powder in. Transfer the ground nuts (and superfood if you’ve added it) to a bowl and set it aside.
Ground Nuts

2. Put the dried fruit into VitaMix and turn it on. In my machine, the dried fruit looks like it’s just getting thrown around by the blades, but it really is getting cut. Process it for about 30 seconds. It will become more finely ground when you add the nuts.

3. Now add the ground nut mixture to the dried fruit in the VitaMix and turn on the blades. You’ll need to use the tamper to push the mixture down into the blades and keep it moving. Keep it running until you can see that the fruit is getting sticky and combining with the nut meal.

4. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and press it into bars with your hands.

Each recipe makes about 4 bars, 1.5″ by 3.5″.