3 Ingredient Flax Banana Bars

I am sharing a few flax seed recipes to go along with a flax seed series I am doing on Instagram. I have to say that flax seeds have been one of the most enjoyable themes in my recipe blogging. They have really expanded my way of cooking and have helped me get a little more adventurous and creative in the kitchen. Sometimes when I am under a lot of stress (which has been very often in the past few years due to quite a few unfortunate circumstances) I really lose my creativity in the kitchen. There are many times when I feel like I am stuck in a rut and resort to the tried and true recipes without much desire to even attempt anything new. Flax seeds have helped nudge me out of that rut a little bit because even though I have faithfully consumed my 1 TBSP of ground flax seed almost daily for hormone health for years, I have never ever considered cooking with them. For some reason, I assumed that since the omega 3’s in flaxseeds oxidase so quickly when ground and exposed to oxygen that cooking or baking them would be even worse. Turns out I am wrong. If you combine flax seeds with water and then cook or bake them then none of the nutritional value is lost, In fact, I would argue that heating may make them slightly better as it destroys any cyanide that could theoretically lead to toxicity (although I don’t feel like the research has proven this yet, it’s still a theory at this stage).

What I love about flax seeds is that they provide all the elements needed in baking in one ingredient. They add protein fat carbs and fibre all in one package. They also gel and bind things together so they take place of eggs or egg replacements. This means that you can really get away with using very few ingredients when baking with flax seeds. If you are grinding your own flaxseeds (which I suggest you do as pre-ground flaxseeds are usually already oxidised) be mindful that once ground flaxseeds tend to yield almost double, so its best to measure out the exact amount of ground flaxseeds needed and reserve the rest for the freezer for different recipes.

These flax banana bars only use three main ingredients, are vegan and gluten-free. Due to the high-fat content, they do leave some oil behind and noticed that my baking paper was a lot oilier than usual after baking but they were delicious. We ate them for breakfast and crumbled over some yogurt with granola and fruit. I would imagine that this recipe would also make very moist and dense banana bread. Next time I may try it as an option. These bars also make a good healthier treat for lunchboxes.  My child has a nut-free school so I have to use sunflower seed butter for him but in my opinion, these bars taste best with peanut butter. That’s because I love the peanut butter banana combo. This recipe is adapted from https://www.powerhungry.com/2019/09/3-ingredient-banana-flax-bars-vegan/. Check out the original recipe and many other great recipes on the website mentioned above.