No-Bake Lemon Energy Bars
on Apr 10, 2020, Updated Oct 14, 2025
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These fresh and flavorful no-bake lemon energy bars are easy to make in minutes with just 4 everyday ingredients. Perfect for a quick, tasty snack or healthy dessert that tastes just like a lemon Larabar.
About the Recipe
- Quick and Easy: Blend these up in minutes in your food processor with just 4 simple ingredients.
- Healthier Snacking: Skip the vending machine and snack aisle and enjoy your own healthier homemade treat.
- Energy To-Go: These bars make a great snack for hiking, long runs, road trips, and travel days.
- Dietary Restriction-Friendly: These bars are vegan, gluten-free, oil-free and have no added sugar. They do, however, contain nuts but I have these Nut-Free Energy Bars, No-Bake Chocolate Protein Bars and No-Bake Granola Bars for nut-free options.
Ingredients
- Almonds: Look for plain, “raw” almonds that have no added oil or salt, blanched almonds would also be suitable.
- Cashews: Same as the almonds, plain cashews are best, they’ll most likely be labeled “raw cashews”. The recipe calls for both almonds and cashews but you can use all cashews or all almonds if you like. If choosing one, I would go with cashews for their mild flavor and softer texture.
- Dates: Soft, moist dates are important for this recipe as they bind everything together, medjool, deglect noor or sayer dates are all suitable. If your dates are hard or dry, you’ll need to soak them first in hot water for 15 minutes.
- Lemon: 1 whole lemon should do the trick, you’ll need some of the juice and a bit of zest…lime works here too or try these Lime Coconut Energy Bites for a variation.
This list is not complete. Please see the recipe card at the end of the post for the complete ingredient list with measurements and detailed instructions.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Step 1. Add the almonds and cashews to your food processor and blend into a coarse, grainy flour. If there are a few larger chunks left behind, that’s ok.
Step 2. Add the dates, lemon juice, lemon zest, optional sea salt and blend it all up into a thick, sticky dough.
How do I make lemon zest? Use a citrus planer or even just a regular box or hand held grater to grate off some of the lemon peel. You’ll need about 2 tbsp of zest.
Step 3. Press the dough into a square baking dish. Pop the whole pan into the fridge or freezer until they firm up a bit then slice and enjoy!
For easy removal, I’d suggest lining the baking dish or pan with parchment paper. This will allow you to lift the finished bars out of the pan and easily slice.
Feel free to follow the recipe to make bars or you can also roll the dough into no-bake lemon energy balls.
FAQs
These bars are best stored in the fridge or freezer. They’ll keep in the freezer for up to 3 months and fridge for up to 2 weeks.
Nope. The bars travel well, especially if you wrap them individually and keep them cool. They’ll be fine out of the fridge for a day or so, even longer if kept cool. They’ll get a little soft if warm but that’s ok!
More Energy Bars
- Chocolate Chip No-Bake Granola Bars
- No-Bake Vegan Hemp Protein Bars
- No-Bake Oatmeal Bars
- No-Bake Apricot Granola Bars
- Baked Cranberry Granola Bars
More Recipes to Try!
Energy Bars
No-Bake Chocolate Chia Energy Bars
Energy Bars
Chia Seed Granola Bars
Desserts
Tahini Hemp Seed Bars
No-Bake Lemon Energy Bars
Ingredients
- 1 cup raw almonds, 140 g
- 1 cup raw cashews, 140 g
- 2 cups packed pitted soft dates, 400 g
- 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 2 tsp fresh lemon zest
- 1/4 tsp salt, optional
Instructions
- Place the nuts in a food processor process until broken down. They should resembled a coarse, grainy flour but a few larger chunks left behind are ok.
- Add dates, lemon and sea salt and blend into a thick, sticky dough you can press between your fingers. If it's not sticking together, add 1 tbsp of warm water and blend again.
- Line a 7-8 inch square baking dish or pan with two strips of parchment paper so they hang out the sides of the pan. This will help you easily lift the bars out once they're done.
- Firmly press the dough into the pan, taking time to really work it in and flatten it into all the corners. Alternatively, roll the dough into balls.
- Optional to place the bars or balls into the freezer for 30 minutes so they're firmer and easier to slice. Lift out of the pan and slice into 8 large bars or 16 squares.
Notes
Nutrition
Originally published on January 8, 2014.
I just made these last night and wow! They are delicious! Thank you for the awesome recipe! So good 🙂
Is there any chance to replace dates with something like cranberries, as dates are not available for me to buy. Can something else act as a binder for the rest of the ingredients (except for eggs, Im allergic :/ )
Sure, prunes, figs, raisins or cranberries should all work. You might have to soak them first though. The dates I use are quite soft so they work well.
I just made these using a mixture of dried cranberries and sultana raisins and they turned out great!
Made these last night and decided to roll them into balls. They came out fantastic.
These are my favorite! I have a similar recipe on my blog 🙂
These are delicious and keep for quite awhile in the refrigerator. I coated mine with dessicated coconut which keeps them from sticking together and makes them less sticky to eat on the run. Thanks for the great recipe!
Mmmm, coating with coconut is a great idea! Glad to enjoyed them!
Looking forward to trying these! Do you use salted or unsalted nuts? Raw ones? A combination? Thanks!
I usually use unsalted raw nuts, but they don’t have to be raw. Unsalted for sure though! Thanks!
Just made these. Yum! They are delicious:)
Oh yay! So glad you enjoyed them! 🙂
Ohhh! These look SO refreshing! I think these are exactly what I’m looking for in my life right now! I love the use of dates as the sticky glue to hold it all together. Perfect! I might have to make these into balls – you know I love me some snack bites! 🙂
You know I love ME some snack bites! heheh.
These are refreshing, great way to describe them!
Yum I’ve used other recipes for homemade larabars and they are always so yummy. Thanks for sharing!
These are definitely on my to-make list – they will be great for snacks for my delivery clients! Thanks for the fantastic recipes as always miss Deryn!