Paleo Blueberry Crumb Bars made grain-free, refined sugar-free and dairy-free using almond flour, coconut oil and pure maple syrup. A lovely healthy dessert recipe for berry season.
If you made my No-Bake Paleo Lemon Bars, Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, or my Vegan Strawberry Crumb Bars, you’re going to go crazy over the blueberry version.
…and if you haven’t made my dessert bar recipes yet, you’re in for a special treat!
Tangy, perfectly sweet, grain-free, and absolutely delicious, you’d never know these blueberry crumb bars are actually healthy enough to eat for breakfast. They are lower in sugar than your standard treat and are made with all star clean ingredients.
How about we bake a batch??
How to Make Blueberry Crumb Bars:
Begin by making the crust and topping. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a 8” x 8” cake pan with parchment paper.
Stir together all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Keep stirring until a thick, moist, crumbly dough forms.
Measure out ½ cup of the crust mixture and place it in a bowl to use as the topping. Add ⅓ cup of chopped walnuts (or pecans) to the bowl (if desired).
Press the rest of the crust mixture into the parchment-lined cake pan until you have an even layer of crust. Bake on the center rack of the preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and appears as though it has set up. Remove from the oven and allow crust to cool.
While the crust is baking and cooling, prepare the blueberry filling. Add all ingredients for the filling to a small saucepan, cover, and heat over medium. Bring mixture to a full boil. Stir, mash the blueberries, and cook until mixture is thick and gooey, about 5 to 8 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside or refrigerate until ready to use.
Once the crust has cooled, spread the blueberry mixture over the crust, followed by the topping. Note: I like to use my hands to squeeze the topping mixture together into larger clumps, but you can also just sprinkle it right on.
Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until crumb bars are golden-brown and bubbly. Remove from the oven and allow crumb bars to cool at least 30 minutes before slicing and serving.
Recipe Adaptations:
- Replace the blueberries with raspberries, strawberries, or cherries
- Substitute hazelnut flour for the almond flour.
- Use arrowroot flour instead of tapioca flour.
- Swap out the walnuts in the topping for pecans, or omit the whole nuts altogether.
- Make these low-carb by using a sugar-free liquid sweetener to replace the pure maple syrup.
Enjoy these beautiful bars!
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Paleo Blueberry Crumb Bars
Ingredients
Blueberry Filling:
- 2 cups blueberries fresh or frozen
- 1 Tbsp pure maple syrup
- 2 tsp tapioca flour
- 1 pinch sea salt
Crust & Topping:
- 2 cups superfine almond flour
- 3 Tbsp coconut oil
- 3 Tbsp pure maple syrup
- 1 pinch sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a 8” x 8” cake pan with parchment paper.
- Stir together all of the ingredients for the crust and topping in a mixing bowl. Keep stirring until a thick, moist, crumbly dough forms. Measure out ½ cup of the crust mixture and place it in a bowl to use as the topping. Add ⅓ cup of chopped walnuts (or pecans) to the bowl (if desired).
- Press the rest of the crust mixture into the parchment-lined cake pan until you have an even layer of crust. Bake on the center rack of the preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and appears as though it has set up. Remove from the oven and allow crust to cool.
- While the crust is baking and cooling, prepare the blueberry filling. Add all ingredients for the filling to a small saucepan, cover, and heat over medium. Bring mixture to a full boil. Stir, mash the blueberries, and cook until mixture is thick and gooey, about 5 to 8 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside or refrigerate until ready to use.
- Once the crust has cooled, spread the blueberry mixture over the crust, followed by the topping. Note: I like to use my hands to squeeze the topping mixture together into larger clumps, but you can also just sprinkle it right on.
- Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until crumb bars are golden-brown and bubbly. Remove from the oven and allow crumb bars to cool at least 30 minutes before slicing and serving.
Nutrition
This looks so good! I’ve got to make it today!
Has anyone used avocado oil or evoo instead of coconut oil? I can’t use coconut oil…
Hi Maggie! Can you do butter or ghee? If so, either would be the best replacement for coconut oil. If you go this route, use 4 to 5 tablespoons of butter instead of 3 (butter is less greasy than coconut oil). I haven’t tested the recipe with avocado oil or olive oil so I can’t speak to how the bars would turn out.
I plan to make these tomorrow w/cherries. Seems to me that it might not be as easy to smash the cherries as the blueberries. Would you recommend cutting them in half before placing them in the saucepan? Or should I just go it & see what happens???
Wow. Yummy! I did not expect good results on my first try, because I reduced sugar in both components. Both crust and filling took longer to cook, but the bars were super. I used 2.5 cups blueberries with no maple syrup. For the crust I used 2 T maple syrup and 3.5 T melted butter, and added the optional walnuts. Kirkland brand almond flour. These are surprisingly light and buttery. I could almost eat the whole pan. Eeek. Thank you for the great recipe and for helping me out when I bought too many blueberries.
I appreciate you so much! Free recipes on the Web keeps me going through some tough times and creates a lot of fun, like today, when I dropped some of my chores to bake instead.
I love hearing all of this, Elaine! Thanks so much for sharing your changes – this is super helpful to others who want to try the same thing! I love that these bars don’t need a lot of sugar to taste so nice and inviting. Happy baking! xo
Love these. Tried with blueberries and raspberries and also substituted part of almond flour with hazelnut flour. Everyone liked them
Yaay! I’m happy to hear that! Thanks so much for sharing your experience, Lucie! xo
Thank you so much for this recipe it is just the right amount of sweetness and delicious! Because we have a lot of blueberries, I doubled the filling and added a teaspoon of real vanilla extract, I also used cornstarch to thicken as we didn’t have tapioca and they turned out amazing!
Ooh, that sounds amazing! I love the idea of using more blueberries! xo
These came out delicious. I substituted the blueberries with blackberries!
Sounds amazing, Shana! Thanks for sharing!
I made this and it was still really crumbly after! Like the almond flour was basically coming apart when I cut into it. Do I need to add some more syrup or oil to help the crust and crumble to stick together? Thanks!
Hi Jen! Oh no…I’m sorry to hear that! What brand of almond flour did you use? I’ve found some brands require more liquid than others. I think adding more oil would be the trick in the case of crumble.
I can’t have almond flour. Can I substitute it with tigernut, cassava or coconut flour? Thank you!
Hi Tara,
You should be able to substitute either tigernut or cassava using a 1:1 ratio. If the mixture seems overly dry, you can add more oil but either of those flours should work. Coconut flour would require many changes, so I’d start with either tigernut or cassava 😀 Let me know how they turn out! xoxox
Ohhhh my goodness I love these!! I made them with minor changes using the ingredients I had at home!! This was vegan friendly so thank you! I used chia seeds instead of tapioca because I didn’t have that and used some oats and almonds in the crumble! Thank you again!
That sounds amazing!! Thanks for letting me know, Sarah! xoxo
These squares are absolutely delicious and just sweet enough. ❤️ I was wondering what the calorie content was.
I’m so happy you like them, Valerie! I added the nutrition facts to the recipe card (based on 12 bars) 😀 Let me know if you have any other questions!
These are so good! I love that they are very low sugar to, thanks!
Hi have you tried substituting the maple syrup in the blueberry bars with anything else for keto diet
I haven’t tested the recipe with a sugar-free sweetener yet, but I would recommend sticking with a liquid sweetener. Pyure makes a great faux pure maple syrup which is sugar-free 😀 Hope you enjoy!