My sister in law Gloria loves dandelion – especially dandelion pesto with a chilled glass of sparkling Prosecco. But recently she spread her wings and learned how to actually harvest – and bake – with dandelion root. A thrilling experience as you can see!
And now she has a new love, these No Bake Dandelion Root Chocolate Peanut Butter Oat Bars! (Still with Prosecco). After all, the combination of chocolate peanut butter goodness and buttery sweet oatmeal comes packed with the amazing health benefits of dandelion root! She’d heard that dandelion root can be useful in treating arthritis and wanted to see if they would help a particularly achy hip. (Read more about their many nourishing and healing abilities here.) And the amazing thing about these bars is that you can’t taste the dandelion roots at all. Plus they are gluten-free! What’s not to love?
While fall is probably the best time to harvest dandelions, early spring is good as well. And so Gloria and I set out on a glorious sunny day in late March with spade and basket in hand and it wasn’t long before we spotted an ideal candidate. I showed Gloria how to gather the dandelion greens up in hand (like you would for a ponytail) then dig deep into the ground AROUND the root first. Once you’ve loosened the root from the surrounding soil, then and only then, do you carefully pull as much of the root out as you can. Gloria got herself a pretty good one!
After you’ve done the work of harvesting and washing your roots, these No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Oat Bars only take 15 minutes to put together! But first things first, you have to give them a good soak and wash. Then you’ll peel any rough blackish bits off, then pile them into the food processor for a good whirring.
You’ll need about half a cup of dandelion (about 4 good sized roots). You can also add ground dandelion root powder – I go into more detail in this Dandelion Root Chocolate Bites recipe here. You’ll simply add the chopped dandelion or dandelion root powder to your oat mixture. Then after assembly all you have to do is wait for them to set for two hours hour {forever!} before they’re ready for indulging! Oh and you’ll need that glass of Prosecco! Cheers!
For full recipe click here.
