Healthy Snacking Tips & Crunchy Granola Recipe

Do you and your kiddos ever find yourself having a snack attack a few hours after dinner? What do you do when this happens? Here are some healthy snacking tips that we use and a recipe for healthy and crunchy granola!

• Have regularly scheduled meals. This will keep the kids from snacking excessively in between meal time. 
• Keep dry, low sugar cereals on hand.
• When a salty snack is needed, choose from the huge variety of Snyder's of Hanover pretzels. They come in a large variety of shapes & flavors.
• Keep clean, colorful, cut up veggies in the fridge as well as a yogurt dip. We just recently tried a new yogurt dip in the refrigerated section of the store that comes in a variety of flavors. The yogurt dip has protein in it that helps the craving as well as the crunchy, colorful veggies.
• Frozen fruit is fun to top yogurt or eat straight out of the bag. Give the kids toothpicks or kabob sticks to make their own fruit kabob.
• Use the frozen fruit with a splash of soy milk for a quick snack.
• Keep ice cream cones on hand for them to make their own snack mix with healthy foods in your pantry. They can add in Snyder's of Handover mini pretzels, nuts, cereal, dried fruits, etc. or you can make my healthier, crunchy granola below. (Sorry I can't find my picture of the granola. As soon as I do I will post it.)

HEALTHIER CRUNCHY GRANOLA

Ingredients

2/3 cup chopped dates
1/3 cup chopped dried apricots
1 cup water
8 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup almonds, slightly chopped
1 cup cranberries (craisins), dried
1/2 cup blueberries, dried
3/4 cup oat bran
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1/2 cup sunflower seeds (roasted and salted is good)
3 cups Snyder's of Hanover Mini Pretzels
1 1/2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup frozen apple juice concentrate, thawed


Directions

Preheat oven to 350. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine dates, water, canola and apple juice concentrate. Cook stirring occasionally until the mixture forms a thick paste. Remove from heat-set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together remaining ingredients. Spread out onto thin layer on a baking sheet. (1 full sheet or 2 half sheets). Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly toasted. Transfer to a large bowl and mix in date paste mixture. Bake an additional 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until lightly browned.

What snacking tips do you have to share? I would love to hear them. Do you have a favorite healthy snack recipe? I would love to feature you on my blog as Guest Chef. 

If you want a sweet snack, try my White Christmas Bark. We do making it at other times besides Christmas. It is more of a "holiday" bark because you use seasonal M & Ms and well as seasonal sprinkles!

 Check out Snyder's of Hanover for more tasty recipes! I could NOT believe how many new recipes I found on their page that I will be trying soon with my family. 

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