These easy vegan peanut chocolate bars taste almost like Snickers or Twix but the recipe is made healthier with a gooey gluten-free oat coconut base, soft date caramel and salted peanut layer – all coated with chocolate! So if you’re looking for a quick no-bake dessert or grab-and-go snack to make ahead, this homemade candy bar recipe is just the best!
Vegan Snickers Bars
I’m absolutely in love with the sweet and nutty flavor of Snickers bars, but I also really enjoy a caramelly and crunchy Twix bar. So, I thought about a way to combine the best of both treats and ended up with this super tasty peanut chocolate caramel candy bar. It contains the intense flavor of salty peanuts with naturally sweet date caramel and a crunchy base which makes the perfect contrast to the soft layer!
Why you’ll love these Peanut Caramel Chocolate Bars!
This simple homemade vegan snickers recipe is super quick and easy to make and requires no baking. You can mix all ingredients together easily in a high-speed blender or food processor. Even the delicious Twix-like oat coconut base comes together quickly in just one bowl.
Since these peanut chocolate bars keep well in the freezer for a long time, you can prep a large batch ahead of time for the future! Thanks to their handy small size, these bars are absolutely perfect to take away and eat on the go!
And as a bonus, they have no processed refined sugars and no unhealthy fats so they make a healthy vegan candy bar treat!
Soft Date Caramel
The creamy date-based “caramel” doesn’t taste exactly like rich, buttery caramel, but it’s delicious in its own unique way. To get a perfect soft but chewy caramel consistency, soft dates will do best here! If you can’t find any in a supermarket or online, simply cover regular pitted Medjool dates with warm water. Then set aside and let them soak for 10 minutes until softened.
To speed up the process you could also boil or microwave the dates in water for 1-2 minutes. However, keep in mind that they won’t be raw anymore when you cook them. Once the dates are soft, you’ll be able to blend them easily into super smooth caramel as shown in the step-by-step pictures!
How to make Vegan Snickers Bars
Step 1: Make the Base
To make these tasty peanut caramel chocolate bars start to grind the oats into flour. You can use regular as well as gluten-free oats or substitute store-bought oat flour. Then, place the oat flour into a bowl and add the shredded coconut flakes, liquid coconut oil, agave syrup, and plant milk. Stir with a spatula to combine, then set aside for a while, until the dough is firmer.
In the meantime, lightly grease an 8×8-inch baking pan and line it with parchment paper so that there’s an overhang on the sides. The previous greasing helps the parchment paper sticking to the baking pan for easier lining and removal. When the oat mixture is firm enough to work with, press it evenly into the prepared baking pan.
Step 2: Make the Date Caramel
For the date caramel, place the soft pitted dates in a highspeed-blender, along with the peanut butter, maple syrup, and vanilla extract and blend until smooth. Then transfer the sticky caramel into a bowl, fold in the salted peanuts and spread it onto the base evenly. Place the pan in the freezer for about 2-3 hours or in the refrigerator overnight until the vegan snickers bars are firm enough to cut.
Step 3: Make the Chocolate Coating
To make the chocolate glaze, roughly chop the chocolate. Place in a heatproof bowl and melt it over a water bath along with the coconut oil. Remove the pan with the Snickers out of the refrigerator. Then, carefully lift the whole block out by using the parchment paper overhang. Cut the block into bars, place them on a wire rack and pour over the melted chocolate. Alternatively, you can also dunk each bar into the bowl with the melted chocolate and rotate it using two forks.
Step 4: Garnish with Sea Salt and Peanuts
Once the vegan snickers bars are evenly coated with the chocolate, place them on a cooling rack. I suggest placing a sheet of parchment paper right underneath the rack to prevent the chocolate from dripping on your counter. Finally, sprinkle the candy bars with coarse sea salt and more salted peanuts as desired.
A little note on the base!
In the past, I have already tried to create a recipe with a vegan cashew-based nougat layer to make the bars look even more similar to the original Snickers. Unfortunately, they turned out too soft (almost like ice cream, haha!), so I made some adjustments and tried other options. After all, I figured out that this simple coconut oat base is not only fail-proof but also even more delicious! It’s slightly nutty, perfectly sweet, and a little crumbly so it rather reminds of the biscuit layer in a classic Twix bar.
Since the base requires no baking, it’s raw and rather chewy. But if you prefer a crispier biscuit crust, feel free to bake the oat base for about 10-12 minutes the same way as you would pre-bake a cookie crust.
Can I use other nuts?
If you love Twix or Snickers bars but cannot eat peanuts, feel free to substitute the peanut butter with another nut or seed butter. You can also substitute other nuts for the whole peanuts in these bars or simply leave them out completely. Just keep in mind that the taste will slightly change so I recommend using a variety that is relatively neutral in flavor, such as almond or cashew butter or tahini for a nut-free option.
This Vegan Peanut Caramel Chocolate Bars recipe is:
- Vegan (dairy-free, egg-free)
- Easy to make
- Naturally sweetened
- Slightly salty
- Soft & crunchy
- Gooey & Chewy
- Pretty Healthy
- Perfect on-the-go
- Paleo-friendly
- Requires no backing
- So delicious!
More vegan recipes with chocolate, peanuts or caramel to try:
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake
- Chocolate Zucchini Bread
- Caramel Cheesecake Mousse Dessert
- Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
- Apple Blondies with Caramel
- Chocolate Pumpkin Marble Bread
If you try this homemade vegan Snickers recipe, please leave me a comment and rating! Your feedback is always very helpful for me and other readers. And if you take a photo of your peanut caramel chocolate bars, please make sure to tag me on Instagram @biancazapatka #biancazapatka because I love seeing your remakes! Enjoy it!
Vegan Peanut Caramel Chocolate Bars
Author:Ingredients
Oat Base
- 1 cup (90 g) fine oats gluten-free, if desired
- ½ cup (50 g) shredded coconut not coconut flour!
- 1 tbsp coconut oil melted
- 2 tbsp agave syrup *see notes
- ½ cup (120 ml) non-dairy milk *see notes
Date Caramel
- 1 cup (225 g) soft dates pitted (*see notes)
- 3 tbsp (2 tbsp) creamy peanut butter
- ¼ cup (60 ml) maple syrup *see notes
- 1 tsp vanilla extract optional
- 1 cup (125 g) salted peanuts
Chocolate Glaze
- 7 oz (200 g) dark chocolate
- 1 ½ tsp coconut oil
Instructions
For the best results, I recommend measuring the ingredients in grams. Simply click on the word "metric" right above the ingredient list.
Oat Base (*see step-by-step pictures above)
- Place the oats in a blender (or food processor) and process them into flour.
- Transfer the oat flour to a bowl, add the shredded coconut, liquid coconut oil, agave syrup, and non-dairy milk and stir with a spatula until combined. Set aside for 2-3 minutes until the mixture gets firmer.
- In the meantime, lightly grease an 8x8-inch baking pan and line it with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on the sides.
- Once the oat dough is firm enough to work with, press it evenly into the prepared baking pan.
Date Caramel
- Place the soft pitted dates to the blender. Add the peanut butter, maple syrup, and vanilla extract and blend until smooth. Add a little bit of water or non-dairy milk if needed. (I highly recommend using a high-speed blender).
- Add the sticky date caramel into a bowl and fold in the peanuts. Spread the peanut caramel evenly on top of the oat base, then place in the freezer for about 2-3 hours (or in the refrigerator overnight) until the bars are firm.
Chocolate Glaze
- Roughly chop the chocolate and place in a heatproof bowl with the coconut oil. Melt it over a hot water bath, stirring occasionally.
- Remove the baking pan from the freezer (or refrigerator) and carefully lift the whole snickers block out of the pan using the parchment overhang. Cut into bars with a sharp knife and coat each bar with the melted chocolate (*see tips/photos above).
- Sprinkle the bars with coarse sea salt and peanuts as desired and allow the chocolate to harden.
- Serve the bars immediately or keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks or freeze for longer storage.
- Enjoy!
Notes
- Syrup: Instead of agave syrup or maple syrup, you can also use rice syrup, date syrup, coconut syrup or any other syrup of your choice.
- Non-dairy milk: I prefer using oat milk or soy milk, but you can also use other non-dairy milk, such as almond milk. If you are non-vegan, feel free to use regular milk.
- Peanut butter: Instead of peanut butter, you can also use almond butter, sesame butter (tahini), cashew butter or any other nut butter of your choice. You can also substitute the whole peanuts in the bars with other nuts (e.g. almonds).
- Dates: If you can’t find soft dates in a supermarket or online, simply cover regular pitted Medjool dates with hot water and let them soak for 10 minutes or boil/ microwave the dates in water for 1-2 minutes.
- The instruction time does not include chill time.
- You can find more information in the blog post above.
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Dieses Rezept gelingt mal wieder ganz leicht und wunderbar 🙂
Ich habe keinen Hochleistungsmixer und hab die Datteln einfach eine Stunde eingeweicht und dann in die Küchenmaschine. Hat wunderbar geklappt.
Das tolle ist, dass man die Riegel auf Vorrat “backen” kann. Ich lagere sie im Gefrierfach und hab somit immer einen leckeren Snack 🙂 und auch, wenn eine Freundin zum Kaffee kommt. Das gefällt mir!
Gefroren schmecken mir die Riegel am besten. Wenn man reinbeißt und es macht dieses leckere Knackgeräusch, wie bei einem Magnum Eis, nur besser 😀
Danke an Bianca, für dieses tolle Rezept, ich bin keine Backkönigin, aber das gelingt mir auch super!
Wirklich cool, dass es durch das Einweichen der Datteln auch mit einer Küchenmaschine klappt. Danke für den Hinweis! Es ist toll, dass dir die Riegel so gut gefallen. <3
Die Snickers sind unfassbar lecker! Ich bin jetzt schon süchtig 🤤 Richtig tolles Rezept!
Das freut mich wirklich sehr!
Vielen Dank! 🙂 ♡
Ich wünsche dir schöne Ostertage!
Liebe Grüße, Bianca
Hi! What could I substitute the coconut flakes for, if anything? Thank you!
You can use ground nuts instead such as almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, or whatever you have on hand! 😉
How many calories has a one bar?
You can find the nutritional information in the recipe card! 🙂
Snicker are my favorite and this recipe really is perfect! And they are reaaaally easy to make. I made this as a snack for a small workshop. It was a hit! Everyone liked them, even though it took more than 5 min to eat (they were served during a small break). They are a little “heavy” and I therefore think the sizing is perfect – making the bars a little smaller might also be beneficial. I found the bar to be a little too gooey and lacking in texture when the bottom layer was not baked. I’ll therefor definitely try this next time. Thanks for the recipe!
So glad these vegan snickers were a hit!
If you want the date caramel layer to be less gooey, you could add more peanut butter or a bit of non-dairy milk.
To get a crispier crust, you could bake it for about 5-8 minutes. Then let it cool before adding the caramel.
Thanks for your great feedback!
Best, Bianca 🙂
These were delicious!! Very easy to make. They were a big hit with everyone, even my non-vegans.
Hi Carol,
so glad everyone loved these! 🙂
Thanks a lot for your amazing feedback <3
Much love,
Bianca