Microwave muesli bars take just a few minutes, but as they’re so high in calories and so easy to make, but why make a whole tray of them when all you need is a single muesli bar fix? It doesn’t make sense if you’re cooking for one to make a whole tray of them, you’ll only eat the lot, then regret it! I turn mine into muesli party bites, as this recipe makes two muesli “nuggets”, great for an evening TV snack instead of reaching for the chocolate!
These make chewy/soft muesli bars, not the hard, teeth-breaking sort!
I’ll typically make a single muesli bar on demand and it occurred to me that there might be others who want a quick and tasty muesli bar either for breakfast, lunch or the office lunchbox, without having the temptation of 12-20 others sitting in the fridge!
I use the Tesco Everyday Muesli for this recipe, but any bag of muesli will do. I started using muesli and making muesli bars with this after I made my first batch of flapjacks using just oats and having to buy/mix in other ingredients. It simply made sense to buy a ready-mixed bag of muesli as it meant the cupboards were a little less cluttered and I’d got nothing lurking around being unused.
The muesli I use comes in a 1Kg bag, which fits into a lock n lock style box about 2 litres in size Actually, I tend to keep it in two separate 1 litre boxes as that works better for my cupboard space. Sometimes I do happen to have additional ingredients to throw in, but as muesli already comes with additional items I don’t have to ‘stress’ that they could be more interesting .. 🙂 Right now I’ve got a pot of glacé cherries to get through, that’s rare, but when it happens I can throw in additional interesting items if I wish – there’s no compulsion to go shopping for the extra ingredients.
What is in Muesli?
The contents will vary, from bag to bag – more expensive ones will include more exotic fruits and additions. The Tesco Everyday Muesli simply contains wheat, oat flakes, barley flakes, toasted wheat flakes, mixed dried fruit and chopped hazelnuts – they are all natural ingredients. 7% of the mix is mixed dried fruits and there’s just 1% of chopped hazelnuts.
This budget brand muesli costs, at the time of writing, just £1.18/Kg, making it a great frugal treat!
Ingredients: 
- 30 grams of muesli, which is 1/4 cup or 4 tablespoons – I keep a 1/4 cup scoop in the box of muesli, as they’re so cheap to buy.
- 1 tablespoon of jam, or a jam portion if you’re camping! The thicker/stickier the better, or use golden syrup or honey.
- 1 level teaspoon butter
- 1 teaspoon water
- 1 glacé cherry for the topping, optional
Method:
- Mix all the ingredients together in a mug.
- Microwave on half power for 30 seconds and give it a mix.
- Microwave on half power for a further 30-45 seconds.
- Remove the mug or dish from the microwave oven and set aside for 5 minutes for it to cool down and set. Or, scoop it out and reshape it quickly into the shape you want – I use silicone cup cake cases for this as it makes nice bite-sized muesli nuggets and they pop out easily!
- If you’re topping your muesli bars with choc chips, or glacé cherries, or anything else, add that now!
- Wait 30 minutes for everything to cool down and set. I pop mine into the fridge after about 10 minutes, to cool quicker, if you’re really impatient and have a spare corner in the freezer, then slide them in there for fast results!
- Eat, or store in the fridge in a lidded container. I keep old margarine tubs, which are a great size for storing small quantities of gooey treats!
I make my single muesli bars in an 800watt microwave. This recipe really needs low power, so if you’ve a more powerful microwave, then try this first on a lower setting and microwave it in 15-20 second blasts until it looks/smells ‘cooked’. Once you’ve done it a couple of times you’ll know the exact timings for your microwave.
Be Aware:
- Jams are variable in how well they set – the stickier the better – use a looser jam and you’ll need to use less jam in this recipe. The jam is there as a “sticky binder”. How chewy you like your muesli bars can be a personal preference. If yours turn out to be too loose, then you can either add a bit more muesli and microwave it again, or add in a “dry” ingredient such as dessicated coconut or even cocoa powder to try to stiffen it a little. You might need to try this recipe a couple of times to get it “just how you like it” as we’re all different!
- If you microwave muesli on full power it’s likely to burn, that’s why the recipe calls for half power.
Cost:
If 1Kg of muesli costs ~£1.20, then 30 grams costs just £0.036 (3½p). A teaspoon of jam and the butter probably adds less than another 1p. So, these will definitely cost you less than £0.05 per portion – or, if you’ve made muesli nuggets like mine, they’re just 2½p/nibble! Great party bites if there’s just 1-2 people (yes, 1-2 can still be in the party mood!).
Variations:
You can mix this up with any flavour of jam you like – and any mini toppings. You can also use honey or golden syrup as the “mixer”. You need something “sticky” to bind them, that’s all.