Cranberry Orange Granola Bars

These wholesome cranberry-orange granola bars are a great healthy snack! They're made with oats, honey, nuts, dried cranberries and orange zest.

Updated by Kathryne Taylor on December 3, 2025

29 Reviews
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Cranberry orange granola bars
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These lovely cranberry orange granola bars were not my idea. Lilly commented on my cranberry orange granola recipe and asked how to turn the granola into granola bars. I offered some suggestions, but couldn’t get Lilly’s question out of my head.

So, here we are with wholesome, honey-sweetened, cranberry-orange flavored granola bars. They’re made with lots of healthy whole grains, nuts and seeds. If you appreciate cranberry orange muffins and the like, you’ll love these.

granola bar ingredients

Storage Tips

These no-bake granola bars become semi-solid after an hour-long chill in the refrigerator. You can wrap them individually in plastic wrap for best portability. They survived my trip to NYC intact.

The bars will stay fresh for several days at room temperature, or store them in your fridge or freezer to keep them fresh for weeks or months.

The recipe would also make great “energy bites” if you’d rather roll the dough between your palms into one-inch balls. 

how to make cranberry orange granola bars

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Cranberry orange granola bars
cranberry orange granola bars

More Granola Bars to Make

If you enjoy these bars, check out these similar recipes with different flavorings:

Please let me know how your bars turn out in the comments! I love hearing from you.

Cranberry orange granola bars
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Cranberry Orange Granola Bars

  • Author: Kathryne Taylor
  • Prep Time: 15 mins
  • Total Time: 15 minutes
  • Yield: 16 granola bars

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 4.9 from 29 reviews

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These wholesome cranberry-orange granola bars are a great healthy snack! They’re made with oats, honey, nuts, dried cranberries and orange zest. This gluten free and easily vegan recipe yields 14 to 16 granola bars.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup pecan pieces
  • ⅓ cup pepitas
  • ⅔ cup dried cranberries
  • 1 ¾ cups quick-cooking oats (or old-fashioned oats, pulsed briefly in a food processor or blender to break them up)
  • 1 teaspoon orange zest, preferably organic (from 1 large orange)
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ½ to ¾ teaspoon salt, to taste (decrease if your almond/peanut butter is salted)
  • 1 cup creamy unsalted almond butter or peanut butter, packed
  • ½ cup honey or maple syrup
  • 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. Line a 9-inch square baker with two strips of criss-crossed parchment paper, cut to fit neatly against the base and up the sides. The parchment paper will make it easy for you to slice the bars later.
  2. In a medium skillet over medium heat, toast the pecans and pepitas, stirring often, until they are fragrant and the pepitas are starting to make little popping noises, about 5 minutes. Transfer the toasted pecans and pepitas to a food processor. Add the cranberries and then run the machine for about 10 seconds, until the nuts and cranberries are all broken up. (If you skip the food processor step, your bars will be more difficult to slice through and more likely to crumble at the edges.)
  3. In a mixing bowl, combine the contents of the food processor with the oats, orange zest, cinnamon and salt. Whisk to combine.
  4. In a smaller mixing bowl, whisk together the almond butter, honey and vanilla extract until well blended.
  5. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients. Use a big spoon to mix them together until the two are evenly combined and no dry oats remain. This takes some arm muscles, but you can do it! If the mixture was easy to mix together, that’s a sign that you need to add some more oats—sprinkle in more oats until you can’t incorporate any more.
  6. Transfer the mixture to the prepared square baker. Use your spoon to arrange the mixture fairly evenly in the baker, then use the bottom of a flat, round surface (like a short, sturdy drinking glass), covered in a small piece of parchment paper, to pack the mixture down as firmly and evenly as possible.
  7. Cover the baker and refrigerate for at least one hour, or preferably overnight. (The oats need time to soak up some of the moisture so they aren’t sticky.) When you’re ready to slice, lift the bars out of the baker by grabbing both pieces of parchment paper on opposite corners. Use a sharp knife to slice the bars into 1” strips, then slice them in half through the middle.
  8. For portability, you can wrap individual bars in plastic wrap or parchment paper. Bars keep well for a couple of days at room temperature, but I recommend storing individually wrapped bars in a freezer-safe bag in the freezer for best flavor.

Notes

Recipe adapted from my healthy chocolate chip granola bars.

Make it vegan: Use maple syrup instead of honey.

Make it gluten free: Be sure to choose certified gluten-free oats.

Make it nut free: I haven’t tried this, but I think you could replace the almond butter with sunflower seed butter and the pecans with more pepitas and/or sunflower seeds.

Nutrition

The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.

  • Category: Snack

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