Rice Crispy Protein Squares

This year has been a bit of a transitional year. For four years I worked on losing over 100 pounds. Last year I reached my goal. During that time I focused on counting calories and exercise.

I lost my weight and looked good, but I wanted more. I decided on a new goal. I had always desired to have some muscle and even though I was weightlifting I was not growing any muscle.

I asked around to a few people I knew and asked them what I needed to do to gain muscle. First was to increase the amount of my training. Second was to increase my calorie intake to about 200-300 over what my body needed (that one was hard for someone who feared putting too much weight back on). Lastly but most important was to increase my protein intake.

The details on what a person needs for daily intake I will write about in another blog.

I did some research to figure out how much protein I needed to be eating in a day to increase muscle. I also started figuring out what foods are high in protein but not too outrageous in calories. Chicken, turkey and fish were at the top of the list. I also increased eating eggs, tofu, beans and Greek yogurt.

Besides food, there is also protein powder which when mixed with milk is a big boost in your daily protein. The downfall with drinks though is there is not the same satisfaction as solid food.

The one thing I wanted to eat but couldn’t was protein bars. Practically every protein bar I looked at has at least trace amounts of tree nuts in them. I just can’t take the risk because I am allergic to almonds.

I had an anaphylactic fit once when I ate an almond so I stay away from all tree nuts to be safe.

The only alternative left for me was to make my own. That became a challenge followed by much trial and error.

I wanted to make a no-bake recipe that would be quick to put together.

I looked up several recipes and tried a few. Most were not satisfying. They did look or hold up to the description in the recipes. Some were too soft and mushy. Others were too dry and fell apart.

I figured I could use peanut butter, because I can eat that. It is not a tree nut, it’s actually a legume that grows underground instead of on trees.

The first thing I learned was the recipes I saw online were using too little protein powder and that is why the squares turned out soft. I increased the amount to 150 grams of protein powder per batch (that equated to 90 of protein) which seemed to create a nice firm square.

Some recipes used oats to add substance to the bars, but I just couldn’t make it work. The raw oats were too chewy. I tried cooking the oats, but that was a mistake. The whole mixture turned into a paste. It tasted well and I may share it as a protein dessert at sometime. I called it protein delight. It reminded me of a rice pudding I had with some of my Filipino friends.

Eventually I had a breakthrough and figured out what worked to make a nice firm protein square. Figuring out two things helped making it work. First, since oats didn’t work, I needed something in it’s place. It dawned on me that Rice Crispy cereal would be perfect with the rest of the ingredients. The second thing was adding enough protein powder so the whole mixture would harden in the fridge, yet not be too dry and crumbly.

Through trial and error I figured out what I think is the perfect protein square for me. I have one every day. It only takes about ten minutes to make and makes 16 servings. I would like to share it with you. You only need five ingredients.

Ingredients:

16 to 18 ounce jar of peanut butter

¼ cup of honey

150 grams of whey protein powder (either chocolate or vanilla)

5 tablespoons of either butterscotch chips or chocolate chips

2 cups of Rice Crispy cereal

Directions:

Take an 8x8 square dish and line it with aluminum foil.

Take a large bowl and empty the entire jar of peanut butter in it and add the honey with it.

Put peanut butter and honey in the microwave and set the microwave for 1 ½ minutes. Make sure it is well melted.

Stir the peanut butter and honey so they are mixed together.

Add the butterscotch or chocolate chips, the Rice Crispy cereal and protein powder into the bowl and quickly mix together well before the microwaved items harden.

Pour mixture into 8x8 pan and use a spoon to press the mixture evenly throughout the pan.

Put pan into the freezer for 20 minutes.

Bring pan out of the freezer and slice into 16 squares.

Store in fridge.

Notes:

When getting a piece out of the pan, lift up one end of the aluminum foil to lift up the squares. It is easy to separate a square from the rest of them.

The butterscotch a chocolate chips will melt as you mix it in with the peanut butter.

If you prefer bars to squares you can slice the pan into 12 servings instead of 16 serving. Each serving then becomes 350 calories and 17 grams of protein

Nutrition facts:

16 servings

262 calories per serving

16 grams fat

20 grams carbohydrates

13 grams protein