These No Bake Chocolate Oat Bars will give you a big dose of peanut butter, oats, and almonds, for an energy packed breakfast bar recipe. It's a quick and simple recipe that you can make the night before, so you have them ready to go for breakfast.
In a medium saucepan, whisk together the sugar and cocoa powder to break apart any large lumps of cocoa powder. Add in the milk and butter and cook over medium-high heat. Bring it to a rolling boil (it should take about 3 minutes). Allow to boil for another 90 seconds. It will be bubbly and frothy. Remove from heat.
Stir in the peanut butter, dark chocolate chips, vanilla extract, and salt until smooth. Slowly mix in the oats and sliced almonds.
Line an 8x8-inch pan with parchment paper. Carefully dump in the mixture (it will be hot). Cover your fingers with a sheet of parchment paper and gently press down until the top is smooth, being careful because the batter will still be hot. Set aside and allow to cool for approximately 45 minutes. You can speed up the cooling time by setting it in the refrigerator, but it works best cooling at room temperature because then the oats have enough time to soften.
Once cooled, remove the no bake chocolate oat bars and cut into pieces on a cutting board. Store in a airtight container. You should be able to leave these at room temperature, but if it is very hot weather, I tend to keep them in the refrigerator.
Notes
If you find that bars are too crumbly, it is likely caused by over boiling the sugar mixture. Reduce the boiling time next time. The bars in the photo were boiled for about 3 minutes to 231°F / 111°C. They are slightly too crumbly, and I have found that only boiling the sugar mixture for about 90 seconds works best, and no higher than 230°F / 110° C. You can make this recipe without a thermometer, but you may find an instant read thermometer helpful.