These chewy chocolate coconut bars feature three layers of buttery coconut and melted chocolate. They taste like a magic cookie bar combined with an inside-out Mounds bar!
Why you’ll love these easy chocolate coconut bars
No bake treats. The bars come together in minutes, with no oven required. It’s the perfect snack or dessert for a hot summer day.
Easy to make at home. You need just 5 ingredients!
Freezer friendly. Prepare a big batch and store them in the freezer, for instant happiness whenever you’re craving chocolate and coconut.
Good for feeding a crowd. The coconut fudge bars are easy to transport or leave out unrefrigerated, meaning they are a great choice for parties, potlucks, book clubs, or any other time you need a crowd pleasing recipe in a hurry.
Customizable. You can create endless different flavors, with sugar free, gluten free, keto, dairy free, egg free, paleo, and vegan options all included.
You may also like this Coconut Ice Cream
Step by step recipe video
Key ingredients
Coconut – The recipe calls for three and a half cups of shredded unsweetened coconut. For best results, do not use sweetened coconut because the bars will taste too sweet. To avoid crumbly bars, I also recommend against substituting low fat shredded coconut.
Chocolate Chips – I like dark chocolate chips. Semi sweet or no sugar chocolate chips work, as do chopped chocolate bars.
Sweetener – This can be a liquid sweetener, like pure maple syrup or agave or honey. Or you can do a low carb and sugar free version with stevia or powdered erythritol and water.
Coconut Oil – Choose either unrefined or refined coconut oil, or an equal amount of melted coconut butter. Do not omit this ingredient or swap it for vegetable oil, because coconut oil hardens when chilled and helps the bars to properly set.
Salt – Just a little salt adds dimension and keeps the bars from tasting flat. You can technically leave it out, but only if you must.
Vanilla Extract (optional) – I like to include half a teaspoon of pure vanilla extract, to enhance the sweet coconut flavor.
Almond Butter (optional) – A third cup of almond butter adds healthy fats and protein, plus a smooth finish to the chocolate. It also gives you a thicker chocolate layer. You can omit the almond butter if you prefer. (If you want tree nut free bars but still want a thicker chocolate layer, just add more chocolate chips.)
How to make chocolate coconut bars
- Line an eight inch square pan with parchment paper or wax paper. Set this pan aside.
- Throw the shredded coconut and coconut oil, sweetener, vanilla extract, and salt into a food processor. Blend until evenly combined. (If you do not own a food processor, you can stir everything together by hand. It is best to increase the coconut oil by two tablespoons if stirring by hand, to keep the base from crumbling.)
- Spread about two thirds of the coconut mixture into your prepared pan. Press down really well with your hands or a large spoon or a sheet of parchment paper.
- Carefully melt the chocolate chips in a heat safe bowl. You can microwave one minute, stir, then microwave in ten second increments, stirring after each. Or melt the chocolate using the double boiler method on the stove top.
- Stir the optional almond butter into the chocolate sauce until completely smooth. Then spread over the layer of coconut in the baking pan.
- Finally, disperse the remaining coconut over the chocolate. Refrigerate or freeze until firm enough to slice into squares or bars.
- Outdoors on a cool day or in a cool indoor environment, the no bake snack bars can sit out unrefrigerated. Store any leftovers in a covered container in the refrigerator or freezer for up to a month.
Katie’s favorite flavor variations
Cherry: Decrease the sweetener in the recipe below by one tablespoon. Blend two tablespoons of cherry jam in with the coconut, for your very own homemade Australian Cherry Ripe bars.
White Out: Swap the dark or semi sweet chocolate chips for white chocolate chips. Or butterscotch chips, cinnamon chips, or Vegan Peanut Butter Chips. Or… you get the picture.
Chocolate Strawberry: Add a layer of thinly sliced strawberries over top of the chocolate layer. This same idea works with raspberries, blueberries, or sliced bananas as well.
Peanut Butter: Use creamy or crunchy peanut butter instead of the almond butter. Chocolate coconut peanut butter? Yes, please!
Caramel: Spread melted caramels or Coconut Caramel over top of the chocolate layer.
Toasted Coconut: Before blending, toast the shredded coconut in a pan over low heat just until it begins to turn light brown. (It will turn darker brown as it cools.) Proceed with the recipe.
Almond Joy: The original version tastes like a Mounds Bar candy bar. Turn it into an almond joy by simply pressing a whole almond into the top of each sliced bar.
The bars were adapted from my Coconut Balls and these Homemade Bounty Bars.
Chocolate Coconut Bars
Ingredients
- 3 1/2 cups shredded unsweetened coconut (210g)
- 1/4 cup pure maple syrup or honey (60g), or stevia equal in sweetness to 1/4 cup
- 1/2 cup melted coconut oil or coconut butter (100g)
- 3 tbsp water or additional coconut oil, only if using stevia
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract (optional)
- 1 1/2 cup chocolate chips or sugar free chocolate chips (270g)
- 1/3 cup almond butter (80g) (optional)
Instructions
- *For seven fun flavor variations, see above.
- 1. Line the bottom of an eight inch square pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
- 2. Process the coconut, oil, sweetener, vanilla, and salt in a food processor until evenly mixed. (You can technically stir by hand, but I recommend adding two tbsp extra oil to avoid crumbly bars.)
- 3. Firmly press down about 2/3 of the blended coconut into the bottom of the pan.
- 4. Carefully melt the chocolate chips in a heat safe bowl. You can use the microwave (heat one minute, stir, then heat in 10 second increments and stir after each) or the double boiler method.
- 5. Stir the optional almond butter into the melted chocolate. Spread over the coconut layer.
- 6. Scatter remaining coconut on top of the chocolate layer. Then chill the chocolate coconut bars in the refrigerator or freezer until firm enough to slice into squares.
- 7. The recipe is fine to leave out in a cool room for a few hours. Refrigerate or freeze leftovers in a covered container for up to one month.
Video
Notes
More no bake chocolate snacks
So easy and quick to make, and they are SOOOO delicious!! A new fav of ours.
Does the nutrition information account for regular sweetner (honey, agave, maple syrup) or does the nutrition information not take Stevia or Swerve into consideration?
(needing net carb info, as I am Keto).
The first nutrition label is the keto friendly one 🙂
I want to use Swerve; am I using the granular or powdered version in place of the liquid sweetener and how much?
Could I use xylitol granular sweetener in place of the 1/4 cup liquid sweetener? If so do I have to add any liquid to the xylitol granular?
Thanks!! 🙂
These are amazing! The whole family loved them. I used the Lily’s and for liquid keto sweetener I used Swoon https://www.tasteswoon.com/products/swoon?variant=14142457905197
It was perfect! Thank you!
Orgasmic!
Would these hold up in the mail? Or will they melt? I like to send healthy treats to my friends on their bday <3
Hmm unfortunately would melt because of the coconut oil. Maybe one of the cookie recipes would work better? https://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/category/healthy-cookies/
Wow, wow, wow – these are amazing!! For the sweetener I used part of the designated amount Lakanto monk fruit granular sweetener and half with Lakanto maple flavored syrup (keeping it keto.) These are amazing, rich and taste absolutely sinfully delicious. Thank you for this great recipe.
Can i use cocoa powder instead? What other replacements can I use for the low carb chocolate chips? Thanks
These look absolutely wonderful.
I’m confused by the instructions “Carefully melt the chocolate, stir in almond butter if using, and spread over top of the coconut.”
Does this mean the 1/3 cup almond butter, or additional chips or coconut oil/butter in the ingredients is all optional? Or, does it mean to choose one and mix it in with the melted chocolate.
Made these Friday but played a bit. Added an additional layer of white chocolate and dropped some Goji berries in between. Net carbs are up a smidge so definitely a Treat only but what a Treat !
Thank you for the base idea , looking through the rest of your recipes !
Very slight confusion….1st item in the ingredients list is 3 cups shredded unsweetened coconut, does not say “divided”. Last step of instructions states to sprinkle with **remaining** coconut. So question is, is it a full 3 cups coconut in the base and then ADD some coconut to the top at the end or is it take ‘some’ out of the 3 cups to sprinkle on top at the end. Thanks for your clarification ! btw, made several of your recipes and LOVE them so can’t wait to try this one…just pulled your chocolate chip cookies from the oven 🙂
Hi sorry for the confusion. It means to sprinkle the remaining 1/3 of the coconut mixture (not just plain coconut) on top.
I’m very confused about the do you use 1/4 cup keto regular sugar and 1/4 cup of coconut oil and mix together
Hi!
I made this recipe! It turns out great!! thank you so much for sharing!!
I didn’t use a blender but they weren’t crumbly. Just perfect.
I just wanted to ask you if you can always include grams other than cups in your recipes. I live in Italy and we don’t use cups. I always need to convert cups to grams but sometimes the convertion that I find on the internet is not accurate so the recipe doesn’t turn out how expected.
This is not the case of course but just in general it would be amazing to always have grams other than cups!
In any case.. thank you!
Another yummy one! Super easy to make. I used coconut sugar and it worked perfectly. Thank you!!
I’ve done it and it’s awesome!!! Thank you! 💜