No Bake Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Balls

 

One of my favorite quick bites to eat before of after the gym or on mornings that I don't have a lot of time to make breakfast are protein balls. My favorite ones are from a local smoothie shop, but I can't always get my hands on them, so I decided to try to make a version of them at home using the same ingredients they use. Besides the amount of rolled oats and peanut butter, all the other ingredients have some wiggle room to play with. You can add some more or less honey. The more dry ingredients you add the more wet ingredients you need to add, you want to make sure the mix is not too dry, but not overly wet. The mix needs to be able to be easily scooped into balls and then chilled to firm up.

Makes 20 small bite size protein balls

Ingredients:
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup peanut butter or almond butter
1/4 cup honey or agave or maple syrup
1/2 banana (optional - I had some very overdue bananas that were very tender, feel free to add the full banana if you like bananas. I usually add the 1/2 banana, so that I can lower the amount of honey I add sometimes. You can play with cutting some of the honey by adding a little more banana to make the mixture a little more wet.)
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract (optional)
1/4 cup protein powder (I use chocolate plant based protein)
1 tablespoon of chia seeds (straight out of the container - not soaked)
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 cup of mini dark chocolate chip (or I had a dark chocolate bar and chopped up a few pieces) I try to buy no sugar added dark chocolate.

Directions:

In a bowl, mix peanut butter, honey, mashed banana and vanilla. Add oats, protein, chia seeds, cinnamon, chocolate chips. Mix until well combined. 

This is the current dark chocolate and protein I have been using:

Use a small cookie scoop or you can use a tablespoon and roll them into balls.

Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes. I then put them in a tupperware and enjoy them for the rest of the week as a sweet treat after dinner or as an afternoon snack or I sometimes eat 3 of them for breakfast when in a rush.