Homemade Aussie Bites Recipe » LeelaLicious (2024)

This homemade Aussie bites recipe is a copycat of the Costco Aussie bites. They are a lovely snack bite like an oatmeal cookie with superfoods like dried fruit, seeds and more. Moreover, this version is gluten-free, vegan, and dairy-free. The bites are free of wheat, eggs, and peanuts as well, which tend to be common allergens for people.

About These Aussie Bites

These Aussie bites are a delicious compilation of dried fruit, seeds, natural sweetener, coconut oil, and oats, with a chewy texture similar to granola bars. These bites make for wonderful snacks due to the fact they provide plenty of energy and keep you full due to being high in fiber. One Aussie bite contains 5 grams of fat, 3 grams of sugar, 7 grams of carbs, and 3 grams of saturated fat.

How to Make Aussie Bites

Start by preheating the oven to 350° F. Next, you have two options for how you would like to bake these bites. The first is a 24-cup mini muffin tin which you can grease lightly for easy removal of the bites. You can grease the muffin tin with coconut oil if you like or even a little organic unsalted butter.

The other is on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Not everyone has a mini muffin pan, so the baking sheet method makes this recipe extra versatile for those with limited kitchen equipment.

Making the Oatmeal Bites Mix

The first step to making the Aussie bites mix is to pulse 1 cup of the rolled oats in the bowl of a food processor until finely ground into oat flour. Next, you add the remaining oats to the food processor along with the apricots, raisins, coconut sugar, shredded coconut, puffed amaranth, sunflower seeds, flax meal, chia seeds, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda (see below for some ingredient substitution suggestions). If you can't find flax meal you can make your own from flax seed by blending the flax seeds in a food processor or spice grinder until fine. Flax seeds and flax meal are wonderful ingredients to have on hand anyway as they contain fiber, magnesium, thiamine, copper, carbs, and more. Additionally, they include plenty of protein and omega-3s.

You should pulse this mixture until the dried fruit is cut up into small pieces, but it shouldn’t become finely ground. The dried fruit both acts as a binder and gives a fruity, sweet taste to these bites.

Adding the Liquid Ingredients

The final ingredients that go into the mix are coconut oil, maple syrup, and vanilla. At this point, you can pulse the food processor just until the wet ingredients are combined with the dried fruit, oat, and seed mixture. All of these ingredients combine into a delicious healthy snack that you can take with you on the go. As one of the best express foods, these bites hold up well in a sealed container to have as a snack at work or school. They are without added wheat, canola oil, soy, and sugar, which is particularly great if those are foods you are trying to avoid.

If desired, you can amplify the healthy halo of this recipe too by using items like organic flax seeds, organic shredded coconut, organic chia seeds, organic sunflower seeds, organic raisins, organic quinoa, organic sugar if you don't have coconut sugar, organic vanilla, and sea salt. You could also substitute the maple syrup with organic honey if you would like a slightly different flavour profile in your version of these bites.

Shaping the Aussie Bites

If you chose to use a mini muffin pan, you can simply press even quantities of the oat mixture between the cups. I recommend that you use a tablespoon-sized scoop as you divide them to ensure you get an equal amount into each cup.

Alternatively, if you chose to use the baking sheet for baking the bites, you can divide the oat mixture into 24 even-sized mounds. A 1 tablespoon cookie scoop (or rounded measuring spoon) is an excellent way to do this. See my Instagram pic below

The next step is baking the bites until they become golden and set. The bake time should only be a total of 10 to 12 minutes. Once baked, the best way to ensure that the bites stay intact is to allow them to cool in the pan or on the baking sheet before removing and storing. However, if you think they may have stuck to the tin a little, feel free to run an offset spatula or knife around the edges to gently loosen them.

These will keep in an airtight container for up to 1 week. They make wonderful snacks throughout the day but you could even enjoy them as an on-the-go breakfast.

Ingredient Replacements

The wonderful thing about this Aussie bites recipe is that similar to homemade granola or granola bars, there is some versatility in the ingredient list. This adds extra convenience to these wonderful snacks that are easy to take on the go.

• If you don't have dried apricots, you can feel free to replace them with dates, figs, or prunes instead.
• You can replace the raisins with dried cranberries if desired.
• If you don't have coconut oil on hand, you could substitute it with melted butter.

Almost any dried fruit will work in this recipe as long as it is sticky as it helps the bites mixture hold together. This is a great place to use up some leftover dried fruit from holiday baking. Alternatively, feel free to modify your groceries with an array of dried fruit that you can use to switch up this bites recipe.

Replacing the Sweeteners

The sweeteners are replaceable too. For example:

• if you don't bake with coconut sugar often, brown sugar or cane sugar will both work just as well and add a similar caramel finish.
• Additionally, if you aren't concerned about the bites being vegan, feel free to use honey in place of the maple syrup. However, agave nectar will work well here as well.

Replacing the Dry Ingredients

Some of the dry ingredients can be replaced also. I've replaced the quinoa from the original bites with puffed amaranth. Amaranth was a prominent part of the Aztec diet and is commonly used in Mexican snacks. It has become more widely available in recent years due to its health benefits. It is high in protein and fiber, also containing important nutrients like iron, potassium, magnesium, calcium, and phosphorus.

While amaranth is becoming easier to find, it can sometimes be difficult to purchase in its puffed form at the grocery store. You can find it online or check out my friend Lorena's tutorial for popping amaranth at home.

• Alternatively, you can use puffed, cooked, or raw quinoa instead. Quinoa is similarly high in protein and fiber and is gluten-free.

Finally, if you don't have sunflower seeds or chia seeds, here are some other seed options:

• pumpkin seeds for a pop of green colour and crunch
• hemp hearts
• whole flax
• or sesame seeds.

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