These vegan pecan bars taste like crunchy maple-nut butter and make you feel like you're lounging on a dream cloud. Not surprisingly, they were a super-duper-hit with our recent guests!
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They were eaten up so fast, I had to make another batch right away, which is rare for a dessert in our house.
I think what’s so appealing about these pecan bars is the naturally sweet, buttery taste of the maple and gently roasted nuts, combined with the comforting triple-carb and fiber combination of the barley, oat, and tapioca flours.
It’s my belief that soft starches are a powerful medicine, especially in the summer.
It really helps to reduce the metabolic load of the sugar when you consume sugar together with fiber, and these pecan bars are loaded with fiber.
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Sweet taste benefits
Summer is a time when the sweet taste is especially medicinal, due to its cooling and grounding properties that pacify Pitta and Vata.
Pitta and Vata refer to specific body types (also known as your dosha) in Ayurvedic medicine.
Pitta is fire, and the sweet taste pacifies fire because it's heavy and cooling.
Vata is air and ether, which is by nature light and subtle, and the sweet taste is heavy and grounding, so it pacifies Vata.
If you'd like to learn your dosha, you can take my 5-minute dosha quiz and find out. It's pretty interesting to learn more about your nature, and the type of foods and lifestyle habits that will help you feel more balanced.
So sweet is a cooling taste, and when you can enjoy the sweet taste in its mostly natural form, there’s nothing better!
These pecan bars contain maple syrup, along with just a bit of unrefined sugar, but there’s enough fiber from the pecans, barley, and oats to balance that sugar out so that you don’t feel jittery or overloaded.
A healthy dessert
I’m currently on a quest to perfect more healthy dessert recipes that satisfy your summer craving for something sweet.
So I’ve been recipe testing my heart out, and I’m excited to share more even more healthy dessert recipes with you in the coming weeks.
My definition of a healthy dessert is the kind of dessert that makes you feel genuinely good after eating it.
It’s rare to get your craving for something sweet satisfied without overdoing it and ending up feeling bad.
By my definition, a healthy dessert usually contains fruit, nuts, herbs, spices, unrefined sweeteners, high quality fats, and flours.
Sometimes you have to seek out unfamiliar or alternative ingredients to make a healthy dessert, such as barley. Who puts barley in a dessert right?
That’s because the majority of the desserts you find are simply not healthy! You will never feel good eating refined sugars, refined flours, and refined oils.
Nuts are generally one of the best options for healthy desserts because they are a source of health fats that are also high in protein, fiber, minerals, and vitamins.
Most of the calories in nuts come from fat, but these are mainly unsaturated fats. Tree nuts like pecans, as well as walnuts and almonds, are also cholesterol-free.
Ayurveda’s view of nuts
Since nuts are heavy, oily, and rich, it helps to combine them with digestive support from spices or even dried fruits.
In this pecan bar recipe we are using cinnamon, and the salt and sweeteners play a role in supporting digestion as well since plain pecans are just sweet and buttery.
As a general rule, when eating nuts as a snack, Ayurveda recommends mixing nuts with dried fruit, such as raisins, sour cherries, or cranberries.
The dried fruits add the sour taste, which increases digestive secretions and brings in a bit of heat to support metabolism.
Pecans health facts
Since this dessert features pecans, it will help to understand the health benefits of this elegant nut.
According to the Georgia Pecan Commission, a 30-year study by Harvard University found that regular nut eaters were less likely to die of cancer or heart disease.
- That’s right. Pecans are heart-healthy. They contain very little saturated fat, no trans-fat, and zero cholesterol.
- In fact, regular consumption of pecans helps to reduce LDL (bad) cholesterol, as well as total cholesterol.
- Contains more than 19 vitamins and minerals, including vitamins A and E, folic acid, calcium, magnesium, manganese, iron, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc.
- High in fiber, low in carbohydrates, and low on the glycemic index.
Pecans by dosha
In Ayurveda, we categorize foods based on their qualities, and we also categorize people based on their qualities.
For people, we usually talk about their dosha, or Ayurvedic body type.
If you’d like to learn your dosha, you can learn it in just 5 minutes by taking my dosha quiz.
From an Ayurvedic perspective, nuts are the most pacifying for Vata dosha due to their oily, heavy, and stable qualities.
Pitta dosha types also benefit from nut’s heavy and stable qualities, but Pitta needs to be more careful with their consumption of oil in general. However, the fiber is supportive.
In general, the consumption of fiber is associated with the removal of toxins, since toxins in the digestive tract bind with fiber and are removed from the body through the stools.
Kapha dosha tends toward heavy and oily qualities by nature, and so must be careful with their nut consumption.
Pecans origin
Did you know that pecans are the only major tree nut that’s native to the United States?
According to Cane River Pecan, the U.S. produces between 80-90% of the world’s pecans, with an annual crop of about 300 million pounds.
The word “pecan” comes from an Algonquin Native American word that refers to any nut that needs to be cracked with a stone.
Pecans are harvested around mid-October, with Georgia, Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma being the top producing states.
Recipe for Vegan Pecan Bars
Helpful Kitchen Tools:
- 9x13-inch roasting tray
- medium mixing bowl
- small mixing bowl
Ingredients
for the base - dry ingredients
- 1 cup pecan meal, (finely ground raw pecans)
- ½ cup oat flour, (finely ground oats)
- ⅔ cup barley flour, (sub with sorghum, almond, Einkorn, or spelt flour)
- ⅛ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon mineral salt
- ⅛ teaspoon cinnamon
for the base - wet ingredients
- ⅓ cup sunflower, avocado, coconut, or olive oil
- ⅓ cup maple syrup
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
for the filling
- ¼ cup sunflower, avocado, coconut, or olive oil, (if vegan doesn’t matter to you, use butter)
- ½ cup maple syrup
- ½ cup unrefined sugar, brown sugar, coconut sugar, etc.
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup plant-based milk
- ½ cup tapioca starch, (sub with ¼ cup arrowroot)
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 2 cups raw pecans, lightly roasted and roughly chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and line a 9x13-inch baking tray with parchment paper.
for the base
- In a medium bowl, combine the pecan meal, oat flour, barley flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. (You can use a food processor to make the pecan meal and oat flour yourself from whole pecans and traditional rolled oats.)
- In a small bowl, combine the oil, maple syrup, and vanilla.
- Pour the wet ingredient into the dry ingredients and stir well to combine.
- Press the mixture into the parchment-lined baking pan.
- Bake the crust for 10-12 minutes, until lightly cooked, but not yet browning.
for the filling
- In a medium mixing bowl, add oil, maple syrup, sugar, vanilla, plant-based milk, tapioca starch, and salt. Whisk thoroughly to avoid clumping.
- Add in the chopped pecans and give it a stir to evenly distribute.
- Remove the crust from the oven and let it cool for 5-10 minutes, then add the filling to the crust. Spread it evenly to ensure the pecans are distributed evenly.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the edges are bubbly and the top is lightly browned. The middle will still be slightly wiggly when it’s done, so don’t worry! It firms up quite a bit when it cools.
- Let the bars cool completely before slicing. Remove from the tray using the parchment paper and cut into squares.
Notes
Nutrition
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