Smarty Cooking School: No Bake Energy Balls

Summer is here.  Kids are about to be freed from school and thrust back into your arms to be entertained and fed.  What will you shove in their little hungry mouths?  The snack train can wear you down.  You want to give them something healthy but they want cookies and junk.  I have just the thing to make for them and you don’t even have to turn your oven on.

My friend Ashley Smith first made these no bake energy balls last year during our Blue Ridge Relay endurance race.  We could not get enough of them.  I have since made them many times for my family and recently took them on a girl’s beach trip where the reaction was the same. They loved them.  So I thought I would share.  I have tweaked the recipe here and there.  You can add whatever yumminess you want.  If you hate coconut, for example, just leave it out.  No big deal.

You just need to make sure you have a binder like Peanut butter and honey so everything sticks together.

I usually double the recipe and store these nuggets in the freezer.  They are great in lunchboxes or to take to the pool.  They taste like cookie dough but are all natural and delicious.

In a bowl, mix:

2 Cups Old Fashioned Oats (not the quick cook kind)

½ Cup Natural Peanut butter ( feel free to use almond butter)

1/3 cup Honey

1/3 cup unsweetened coconut flakes (you can toast them if you want, I was feeling lazy so didn’t)

1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

1/3 cup ground flax seed ( you can find this at Trader Joes, Whole Foods and some Harris Teeters)

1 tsp. Cinnamon

1/3 cup Cocoa Powder

Mix all of these together and then put in the refrigerator for about 30 min .

When mixture has rested scoop out into tiny balls on a sheet pan or plate.  I use a tiny meatball scoop then roll with my hands until the balls are nice and firm.

That’s it. You are done.  You just made healthy energy balls.  I will warn you they are completely addicting.  Just look at my kitchen helper.  She is in love with them.