The recipe for these strawberry oatmeal bars makes its debut at Simple Life and Home thanks to my friend Dawn from our church life group. If she hadn’t enjoyed this treat on Sunday, you probably would never see the recipe on this website.
Don’t misunderstand. I thoroughly enjoyed these strawberry oatmeal bars, but I was the only person at my house who thought they were delicious. My rule is that if at least two people at our house don’t love it, I don’t post it. Period.
But when Dawn sent me an email yesterday requesting the recipe, I decided it was worth a shot. Even though she doesn’t live at my house, she’s part of my church family, and that counts for something, right? 🙂
So here’s the post, with this disclaimer. If you like strawberry Nutri-Grain bars, you will love these strawberry oatmeal bars and should definitely give this recipe a try. They are way better than anything you can buy in a store!
On the other hand, if at least two people in your house don’t like Nutri-Grain bars, don’t make this recipe, unless you can take them to your ladies’ Bible study or book club. Otherwise, you’ll probably end up eating the whole pan yourself. And while they really are that delicious, it’s not worth the pounds you’ll put on trying to finish them off! 🙂
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups flour
1 ½ cups oats
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
1 ¾ sticks cold butter, cut into pieces
1 jar strawberry preserves (You can switch out the strawberry preserves for any other fruit you like. I personally think that red raspberry preserves would taste delicious!)
Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven the 375 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with non-stick cooking oil.
2. Mix together the dry ingredients. Add the butter and cut in with a pastry blender. (I took a shortcut and used the pastry attachment on my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. You may call this cheating. I call it saving my arm muscles!) Keep blending until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
3. Spread half the mixture in the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Pour the preserves over the oat mixture, being careful not to disturb the oats, like I did, above. 🙂 (Obviously, it didn’t make too much difference, so spread however you like! Go ahead. Get messy!). Then spread the remaining oatmeal mixture over the top.
4. Bake for 30 – 40 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool. Cut into squares and serve!
- 1 ½ cups flour
- 1 ½ cups oats
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 1 ¾ sticks cold butter, cut into pieces
- 1 jar strawberry preserves (You can switch out the strawberry preserves for any other fruit you like. I personally think that red raspberry preserves would taste delicious!)
- Preheat the oven the 375 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with non-stick cooking oil.
- Mix together the dry ingredients. Add the butter and cut in with a pastry blender. (I took a shortcut and used the pastry attachment on my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. You may call this cheating. I call it saving my arm muscles!) Keep blending until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
- Spread half the mixture in the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Pour the preserves over the oat mixture, then spread the remaining oatmeal mixture over the top.
- Bake for 30 – 40 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool. Cut into squares and serve!
Note: This recipe originally appeared on The Pioneer Woman.
I’ll try the quick oats and we can compare, although being more crumbly might increase the difficult of spreading the preserves. My guess is that we will eat them anyway!
I love the Nutrigrain bars, so will give this one a try. I wanted to know if you used old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats?
Hi, Jill. I used old-fashioned oats, because that’s what I had in my kitchen cupboard. You can also use quick oats, which I think will give it a more crumbly texture. If you make them, let me know which oats you chose and how it turned out! Happy baking!