I pretty sure I’m the only vegan in our city. And sometimes, to be honest, I feel like I’m the only vegan in China. Whenever I tell people I don’t eat meat, they’re shocked. Then when I go further to tell them I also don’t eat eggs or milk, they think I’m crazy. One day in class, I asked my teacher what Chinese people believe are the healthiest foods to eat. She replied with, “Meat, chicken eggs, and milk.”
Welp, we couldn’t be more opposite, could we?!
I will say, since we’ve moved here and my language has improved, I have been able to share a little bit more about why I eat a plant-based diet and how it has improved my health. I also have become known as the healthy baker and cook among our friends, so many people (foreigners and locals) have asked me to teach them how to make my recipes or eat healthier. Just the other day even, my language teacher started sharing with me how she is trying to lose weight and wants me to teach her how to make salads and use her oven to bake vegetables and potatoes in. Definitely girl!
While I may have been one of those rare, crazy people that could go plant-based overnight (yeah, I don’t recommend that for everyone), I think taking baby steps is a much better approach for most people trying to make such a big lifestyle change. While I love eating a whole food, high carb, low-fat, plant-based diet, that has come with time. That’s why I love sharing recipes like these Vegan S’mores Bars. In my opinion they aren’t healthy, but they’re fully plant-based and no one would guess they don’t contain any dairy, eggs or ground-up animal bones (which is what you’d find in regular, non-vegan marshmallows).
These Vegan S’mores Bars have a chewy, oatmeal and whole wheat flour base and are topped with rich chocolate and gooey, sweet marshmallows. They take 10 minutes to put together and just 20 minutes to bake so you can be enjoying these straight out of the oven in no time, which in my opinion is the best way to enjoy them. These Vegan S’mores Bars would be perfect for a delicious, plant-based treat this 4th of July as well!
I hope you can give these simple, 8 ingredient Vegan S’mores bars a try! If you do, make sure to take a picture and tag #theconscientiouseater on Instagram or leave a comment below letting me know your thoughts!
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 cup quick cooking oats
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ⅓ cup melted coconut oil
- ⅓ cup liquid sweetener
- 8 vegan marshmallows, (I love Dandies brand!)
- 3.5 oz. bar dairy-free chocolate
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8x8 baking dish or line it with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In a bowl, mix together the whole wheat flour, quick oats, salt and baking powder.
- Add in the melted coconut oil and liquid sweetener and stir until combined and a wet, crumbly dough forms.
- Press ⅔ of dough into the bottom of your baking pan.
- Using your fingers, rip up the vegan marshmallows into smaller pieces (or use vegan mini marshmallows) and evenly distribute them over the base of the bars. I found that only touching the outside of the marshmallows and then pressing the inside sticky part of the marshmallows into the base of the dough worked best for me.
- Finely chop up the chocolate bar and evenly distribute it over the base of the bars and the marshmallow pieces.
- Evenly sprinkle the remaining ⅓ dough over top of the marshmallows and chocolate and press down to get everything to stick together a bit.
- Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the crumble is golden and the marshmallows are puffy and golden. Don't worry when you see your marshmallows ballooning and becoming really big. When you take the bars out of the oven, they'll shrink back down and just be caramely, sweet goodness.
- Allow the bars to cool a bit before carefully removing them from the pan, cuting into 16 bars, and serving
Eat Consciously,
Faith
Hanna
I’m a sucker for any sort of oatmeal-based bar! These look great, I’ll have to try them for 4th of July weekend!
Faith
I’ll definitely be making these for the 4th too! I hope you like them Hanna!
Laura @ Sprint 2 the Table
These look incredible! I’m going to have to try them out… s’mores are one of my summer favorites.
Faith
We love them tons Laura so I hope you try them out! They couldn’t be easier:)
cel
I wonder if you could replace the coco oil for soaked dates? it would make it high carb low fat!
only on IG do i feel like I’m not alone being vegan 😉
Faith
I’d say go for it! But the base wouldn’t be as crispy and hopefully they’d stay together. Let me know if you give it a try!
Natalie | Feasting on Fruit
This is a million times easier than lighting a fire, skewering a marshmallow, burning it, blowing it out, having to try again…you get the idea 😀 Not to mention just the challenge of finding vegan graham crackers, but this solves all s’mores problems while still being totally completely mouthwatering summertime sweet deliciousness!
Faith
Haha so true Natalie! I don’t know how many times I’ve burnt my mallows and vegan graham crackers are sometimes just a hassle to make!
Liz @ I Heart Vegetables
Ohhhh man these look so good!!! I love s’mores!
Faith
I’ve made 4 batches already haha! Love summer desserts:)
Ana @ Ana's Rocket Ship
Even in the UK where I’m friends with many veggies – sometimes it feels like no one ACTUALLY knows what a veggie is when going out etc… So when there are actually so few vegans it must just feel so immense!
Faith
Exactly Ana! I’ve been vegan for so long, sometimes the question “So what do you eat?” throws me off guard. ALL THE FOOD! haha! It’s just fun to show people that you can make anything plant-based/vegan, you just need a little creativity:)