Recently, I came upon a new-to-me ingredient: carob powder! Have you tried it? It’s like cacao powder, but not. And while it tastes like chocolate, it also has hints of coffee and is naturally sweet (unlike cacao).
Once I mixed it with some coconut butter and took one bite (hello, delicious), I knew a coconut carob bar had to happen. Plus, they fit in nicely with the sugar-free theme going on this month. Let’s do this!
This 7-ingredient recipe is easy to make. It all comes together in a food processor.
The base is coconut butter, which is easy to make at home. It provides a creamy, coconutty, naturally sweet base for these insanely rich bars.
Next comes coconut oil, sea salt, vanilla, and maca powder, though that’s optional. Maca not only adds a honeycomb, caramel-like flavor but also provides health benefits like balancing your hormones and supporting thyroid function. And it boasts minerals like zinc, phosphorous, iron, calcium, and potassium.
The star of the show, though, is carob powder, which supports healthy digestion and has calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, copper, and zinc. It’s also a healthy alternative to chocolate for those who can’t enjoy it.
Once the mixture is blended, simply pour into molds of choice and chill. It’s that easy!
I hope you all LOVE these bars! They’re:
Naturally (and perfectly) sweet
Coconutty
Chocolaty
Rich
Satisfying
Healthy
& Super delicious
These would make the perfect snack or treat to have on hand throughout the week. It’s like a chocolate bar but somehow sweet without adding any sweetener, which has made it my new favorite dessert!
Be sure to check out our other sugar-free recipes this month: Curried Quinoa Salad, Easy Muhammara Dip, Rich Red Curry with Roasted Vegetables, 1-Pot Everyday Lentil Soup, 5-Ingredient Buckwheat Crepes, Actually Crispy Baked Chickpeas, Sunflower-Coated Cheesy Kale Chips, Moroccan Lentil-Stuffed Eggplant, and Loaded Kale Salad.
If you try this recipe, let us know! Leave a comment, rate it, and don’t forget to tag a photo #minimalistbaker on Instagram so we can see what you come up with. Cheers, friends!
Sugar-Free Coconut Carob Bars
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup coconut butter (or store-bought // warmed to liquid texture in oven, stovetop, or microwave)
- 3 Tbsp coconut oil (melted)
- 4 Tbsp toasted carob powder
- 1 1/2 Tbsp maca powder (optional // adds adaptogenic benefits and caramel flavor!)
- 1-2 Tbsp coconut flour (for thickening // or sub almond flour)
- 1 healthy pinch sea salt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- Stevia* (optional // to taste // I didn't find it necessary)
Instructions
-
Add all ingredients to a food processor and blend to combine until completely smooth, scraping down sides as needed.
-
Taste and adjust flavor as needed, adding more carob powder for "chocolate" flavor or sweetness, maca powder for caramel flavor, salt for saltiness, vanilla for vanilla flavor, or coconut butter for creaminess. If it appears too liquidy, add an additional 1 Tbsp (9 g // as recipe is written // adjust if altering batch size) coconut flour. You're looking for a pourable liquid, but not too watery.
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Pour into cupcake liner molds, a lined loaf pan, or silicone chocolate molds like these or these, and let cool until firm. Depending on the temperature of your home, they may solidify at room temperature. If not, carefully transfer to the refrigerator until firm. Then remove from molds and enjoy. Because coconut butter chilled has some texture, don't be worried if the tops of your bars have a bit of ridging to them - that's totally normal!
-
Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator up to 2 weeks or in the freezer for 1 month or longer. Let thaw slightly before enjoying for best texture.
Notes
*Nutrition information is a rough estimate calculated without optional ingredients.
*If you need to sweeten the bars, try stevia. I find liquid sweeteners like maple syrup can sometimes cause coconut butter to seize up.
Nutrition Per Serving (1 of 12 bars)
- Calories: 120
- Fat: 11.2g
- Saturated fat: 9.8g
- Sodium: 25mg
- Carbohydrates: 5g
- Fiber: 2.6g
- Sugar: 1.5g
- Protein: 1.2g
Thank you so much for this recipe! My daughter is doing the Auto-immune Protocol in order to figure out food allergies, and not having sweets is tough. This recipe works for this strict diet + it is really tasty! I left out the maca (not allowed), vanilla (vanilla powder is allowed, but expensive) + stevia (not allowed) and used 2 Tbsp of the coconut flour. I don’t have molds, so I just poured the mixture onto parchment set into a lid (to give it some boundaries) and put it into the fridge. Half an hour later, I broke it into pieces (like candy bark). This is an AIP win! We’ll be making it again + again. Thank you so much!! :)
Yay! We’re so glad your daughter has a treat she can enjoy =) Thanks so much for sharing! xo
I haven’t made your recipe using carob yet, because I just found it.What I did want to say was that we have grown our own carob tree.It has taken several years to mature but finally, last year, we had pods.We have dried them and ground up the pods and have about a medium sized jar of powder waiting to be used.Quite exciting!
Very cool! Thanks for sharing, Betty!
I was wondering why it’s only good for 2 weeks refrigerated. I assumed it’s similar to chocolate bars which last longer and can be kept room temperature.
Hi Rachel, 2 weeks is a conservative estimate- they will probably last longer!
Hello, would this work if you just had mixed everything together? We are currently without a blender or processor!
Yeah that should work!
What a relief to find this recipe!
I just have a question, though:
When you say “Makes X bars,” what-size bars do you mean? (How many ounces of candy does one recipe produce?) I just purchased some candy bar molds that hold 2.7 oz each; how many molds would one recipe fill? Or, what size mold would you recommend for one batch?
Thanks so much; please keep those carob recipes comin’!
Hi Piper, we used these molds. Hope that helps!
It does!
Woof! Those are some monster bars; thank you!
This actually prompts another question, though:
Would this recipe make carob pieces that hold up as, say, chips/morsels in baked goods, or would the resulting mix require some special treatment first? (And carob doesn’t need tempering, does it?)
Thank you again!
Hi Piper, we think they would melt in baked goods, but we haven’t tried it! And we aren’t aware of it needing any tempering. Hope that helps!
I made this and used a little date sugar and cinnamon and insteam of coconut flour used tiger nut flour. I will make it again and use cassava flour a little less grainy. Very good thank you for the recipie.
Thanks so much for the lovely review, Bryan. We are so glad you enjoyed them! Next time, would you mind leaving a rating with your review? It’s super helpful for us and other readers. Thanks so much! xo
This is a wonderful recipe, I added a tab and a half of maple syrup and put them into small rectangular silicon chocolate moulds and put a blanched almond on the top. I used creamed coconut, I think that is the same thing as coconut butter. it comes in a block and melts nicely, very sweet? They Look very attractive and have a unique flavour with the carob. A box of these would be great as a Christmas gift instead of chocolates as they could be decorated with pumpkin seeds as petals to make a flower shape or ground or whole pistachios to give some colour and sprinkled with desicated coconut. Lots of creative possibilities. Many thanks.
Thanks for sharing!
Would a butter substitute work? I cannot eat anything that tastes like coconuts.
Hmm, we haven’t tested anything other than coconut butter. Perhaps melted cacao butter?
Would this work in the blender instead of food processor? My food processor is currently unavailable.
It should, yes! Let us know how it goes.
The blender worked great! However I didn’t have coconut butter because I couldn’t find it at the store. I used natural peanut butter hoping for the best, needed the extra sweetener, and the peanut butter didn’t set up properly. Put it in freezer for a faster hardening time, but it softened pretty fast after taking it out. I’ll take another look for the coconut butter when I’m out again and not in such a hurry.
Oh great, thanks for sharing!
Not sure if you have an Aldi in your area but they carry Coconut Butter as a butter replacement in the dairy section. Hope this helps you Marie!
Hi there! I tried this recipe without coconut butter just used des. coconut and no food processor as my kids are all asleep! Used almond meal instead of maca powder and put some gluten free rice puffs in. It’s just awesome I could eat it out of the bowl! Only added a tiny few drops of maple syrup and Mmmmm mmmm so good my kids will love me tomorrow! Healthyish school treats yay! :) Thanks for the recipe
I have a question. I can’t find toasted carob powder anywhere, only carob powder. Will this work?
That should work? We haven’t tried it that way, but let us know how it goes.
it did work. It’s an acquired taste but I’m warming to it!
Many thanks
I’m sure this recipe is delicious. I wonder how the bars get hard. I made some with carob powder and bananas and a blender, but they only get hard if they are frozen, so my question is, how to make them hard without a freezer? I don’t know if coconut oil makes them hard, but If coconut oil is the only ingredient that makes them hard, how could I make them hard without coconut oil or any oils or fats? I’m trying to make oil free sugar free salt free gluten free hard vegan carob bars. Thank you very much!
Hi Markus, the coconut oil and coconut butter both harden in the refrigerator (and potentially at room temperature). Adding the banana could cause them to not harden. We aren’t sure of other ways to make them hard without oils or freezing. If you come up with something, we would love to hear!
Hi,
Do you have any problem with the chocolate melting?
It will depend on the temperature of your room. If your room tends to be warmer, it is best to store in the fridge. It may melt slightly on your fingers, but not significantly. Hope that helps!
Would these travel in the mail in the winter time without melting?
For two medical reasons, I can’t have chocolate. However I didn’t think I liked carob very much until I tried this recipe! They’re the nearest to chocolate that I’ve found so far (I didn’t add maca).
Just awesome! Thank you :)
I used a liquid carob syrup that we have in Australia. It made the texture weird and not like it should be . Next time I’ll use the powder .
Sorry to hear that, Emma! You should have better success with the powder
Thanks :) I love the carob banjo bears but they have soy in them so wanting these to replace those :)
Caron is high sugar and not the good slow releasing glucose, it is sucrose. Why would you eat carob powder in a ‘non-sugar’ recipe? It would be high in sugar, regardless of if it were naturally occurring or not.
Thank you
Carob has sugar but also lots of fiber. Eating foods high in fiber counter acts the augar content when metabolizing food
It’s not the same when one eats sugar versus sugar with fiber together.
Is it possible to substitute coconut butter with coconut cream?
I’m not sure that will work the same, Bhavika..
Thank you so, so much for including this. It’s super hard to find a diabetic-friendly recipe cos a lot of subs are high on the glycemic index, or that’s what I’ve found so far. I forget that GF doesn’t necessarily mean diabetic-friendly.
Would this work as an ingredient for baking? Specifically, in a brownie recipe that calls for chocolate (the recipe author used a chocolate bar made of cocoa butter and cacao powder, etc). Would it melt and make gooey brownies as the chocolate bar would, do you think?
I didn’t like these immediately.But I did find that the taste gets better after a day or two in the fridge and then it’s quite more-ish.Not sure why.
Can I use vegan butter instead of coconut butter?
Cheers!
No, that won’t work unfortunately.
Just curious how long these take to harder at room temperature (potentially 72°F currently without a thermostat)? Or the fridge? Hoping to have them done in 2 hrs, but unsure on the time.
I made this last night and it was really delicious!! However is was never a liquid consistency- more like a thick brownie batter consistency. Is that what “seizing means”? I only added the ingredients in the recipe and then just pressed it into a loaf pan. It tasted great anyway- just wondering if there were any suggestions for the next time I make it. Thank you!
These are amazing. Topped them w pepitas and chia seeds for xtra crunch factor. Thanks, Dana!!
Hi! I love carob and I am so happy to see a vegan carob bar recipe. Can I sub all purpose flour?
Thanks!
We haven’t tried all purpose flour, but it should work!
Oh wow, I could eat an entire bar for the same amount of calories in a regular dark chocolate bar–with almost a third or fourth of the sugar content! Amazing! Definitely going to be a new go-to chocolate recipe :)
Hi,
Is there any other sweetner I could use rather than Stevia? Is coconut butter naturally sweet ? So it would taste like dark choc ?
These were really good! They satisfied my sweet tooth. Thank you. Keep up the recipes using carob! Xoxo
I meant to say, was I supposed to cool the coconut butter and oil? Does carob seize like chocolate?
Hi, I am the reader who asked about the add-ins. Even before I added them the mixture seized up in the food processor. I cannot think of why. Was I supposed to cook the coconut butter/coconut oil? I ended up adding some maple syrup, a bit of almond milk and then some hot water, but it still wasn’t pourable. I have patted into molds, and will see what happens, but am not optimistic. What do you think?
Hi Ilene. I’m sorry you had trouble. It shouldn’t have seized up – in all my testing that never happened. I do know sometimes when adding maple syrup to coconut butter it can seize up, which is why I don’t recommend it. I added my coconut butter and coconut oil in still warm and it had no trouble. Sorry again! I’m not sure why you experienced that.
I made these the day the recipe was posted and WOW they were delicious. All the ingredients were so easy to find and not expensive and it was incredibly easy to make! I made a couple that were just plain and then added almond butter to a few before refrigerating and they were great! This will be something I make until the day I die! Haha
I just made these and they are scrumptious! I put them in some silicone shapes ice cubed trays from IKEA and they were a perfect size.
why toasted carob and can you toast it yourself?
Hi! Toasted carob is so rich and amazing in flavor, which is why we recommend it. But if you’d rather, raw would probably work well, too! We have not tried toasting it, and can’t say for sure!
I would think the carob pods are toasted before being ground, so toasting raw powder might not have the same effect, but can’t hurt to try!
I was also delighted to hear Dana’s started using carob; we don’t eat chocolate so I always sub carob powder for chocolate recipes (including turtle brownies ;), but it’s not quite the same for recipes geared towards cacao. Hope to try this!
Hey I will have to try these! I just may make the with Coco powder, because that is what I have.
I had to go look for your blog, I saw it on Instagram last night but it hasn’t appeared in my email.
These look great and I am going to make them for a carob loving friend. Is there any reason not to add somethings in like nuts or dried fruits?
I think that would work! We have not tried but if you do, report back on how it goes!
Thanks for this awesome recipe! Just made, and it is just perfect. I am gluten free and can’t eat chocolate so go me it’s like being able to have a chocolate bar! Next will double the recipe!!
Hi
Should we get Raw or Gelatinized Maca powder?
Thank you
April,
I’m not Dana, and I haven’t tried the gelatinzed, but I think either would work since they are both powdered. It’s my understanding that the gelatinized is just maca that has undergone a process to remove the starch and it’s also cooked. Since you’re not cooking the maca in this recipe, I would imagine that they’re quite interchangeable due to the rendered product being the same (powder.)
Don’t hate me if it doesn’t work ;)
I am allergic to chocolate so I work with carob quite frequently and have made some awesome decadent desserts and healthy treats with it. I often crave a plain old chocolate bar, so I cannot wait to try this!
THese are DELICIOUS! I’ve had a bag of carob powder burning a hole in my pantry so I made these ASAP. These make a great energy snack while I’m in class or when I usually go for a chocolate bar at work. Thanks!!
I’ll be on the lookout for carob powder, that’s one I haven’t seen before. These bars look great!
Hi, Dana. Do you recommend the gelatinized or raw maca powder?
Thank you.
Thanks Dana! My mother had her thyroid removed a number of years back and it has had an effect on her hormone balance. This is the first time that I have heard of carob powder and after reading this article I researched more about the positive benefits of carob powder with thyroid function and it was very eye-opening! I forwarded this article on to my mother so that she can have a sweet treat that will also benefit her thyroid. Thanks!
This looks great, and I have juuuust about everything in my pantry. I did just find an unopened bag of carob chips, and wanted to do something with them. Do you think i could melt them down instead of using carob powder? Would i need to cut down on the amount of coconut butter?
OMG Yes!! I do not actually like cacao or the taste of chocolate, but I am crazy about carob, so I am definitely going to make these! Thank you for this recipe, Dana, when I saw it in my inbox, I knew it was made for me :D
Do you have a preferred brand of maca powder you use? The link in the recipe didn’t work.
Is there any nutrition lost in the toasted carob powder over raw carob powder? These look delicious! I hope to try them very soon! Thanks for sharing so many awesome recipes.
I’m sure there is, but the flavor of toasted is so rich and amazing. But if you’d rather, raw would probably work well, too!
Carob is a blast from my past when I worked at a health food store! Such a great substitute for people with a caffeine sensitivity, and it boasts some health benefits, too, similar to dark chocolate. Thanks for this recipe!
Is it possible to substitute cacao powder for the carob powder? These look so good!
Yes! Just add a little sweetener to taste as cacao is less sweet than carob.
Could you use cacaobutter instead of coconut butter?
I think so. The texture would be smoother and the sweetness wouldn’t be as present. Let me know if you try it!
It’s way sweeter with Cacao butter. And has a richer, creamier and more chocolate flavour. Cacao butter is the best for healthy ‘chocolate’ options.
I Love You!! Thank you for this
AIP friendly treat!!
Your the best!
Hope you love it!
Made it, loved it, dipped strawberries in it while it was warm. Mmm
I have carob nibs, do you think I could blend those into a powder?
I haven’t tried that, but if you do, let me know!
I think they would be a great additive at the end, stir in after blending. I think they would add a nice texture. I really like your idea.
I’m glad you discovered carob powder! It’s a great alternative to chocolate! Now….. for something even more insane, use some hazelnut butter instead of coconuts flour, and at the end, add whole hazelnuts to that mix and you’ll go gaga!
Smart! Thanks for sharing!