Easy, Healthy Chocolate Almond Date Balls

I'm all about easy recipes. And despite the abundance of cupcake, cookie, and brownie recipes on the blog, I'm also all about healthy recipes. I promise. ;) And recipes that are both easy and healthy? The best!

Today I bring you one of those recipes. Are you familiar with Larabars? I'd almost liken these little chocolate almond date balls to larabars...but in "ball" form. The texture and taste are quite similar in a lot of ways!

What are the healthy ingredients in this recipe? Well, they're simply dates, almonds, cocoa powder, peanut butter, maple syrup, vanilla, and cinnamon. Couldn't be easier! The original recipe is from the blog, Brittney Breathing. And it actually calls for almond butter instead of peanut butter and honey instead of maple syrup. The peanut butter and maple syrup were my own substitutions. But I want you to know that you're more than welcome to make these with almond butter and honey instead, if you'd like! For someone with peanut allergies, these would be great with the almond butter option. The ingredients below are what I used, and be sure to check the original recipe for Brittney's ingredients.

Ingredients:

-8 to 10 pitted dates

-1/2 cup almonds

-1/8 cup cocoa powder

-1 Tbsp. peanut butter

-1 Tbsp. maple syrup

-1 tsp. vanilla

-cinnamon (1/4 to 1/2 tsp.)

Instructions:

Boil the dates in water for 10 minutes to soften them. Drain and set dates aside. In a food processor, process the almonds until they are in small pieces. Add the rest of the ingredients, and pulse until all the ingredients are well-combined. The mixture may be slightly crumbly. Form into 1-inch balls and place in fridge for 1 to 2 hours before enjoying. Continue to store in the fridge as well. Makes 8 balls.

I loved these! They did not last long in our household. Mike and I ate them in no time at all. Time to make another batch already. ;)

In fact, next time I will definitely make a double batch. Eight of these from one batch just isn't enough!

As I said earlier, the texture of these is similar to a Larabar. They're not going to be crunchy; instead, they are pretty dense and chewy, as you can probably tell from the photos. 

If you didn't happen to have almonds on hand, I bet you could substitute walnuts pretty easily, or any nut for that matter.

Healthy, homemade snacks like these are my favorite. I get so excited about these kinds of things! They're perfect to have as a mid-day snack at work or a healthy option for that next road trip you might be taking.

Happy healthy snacking!