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Have you ever had a dilly bar? They are a classic ice cream treat with vanilla soft serve coated in chocolate on a popsicle stick. They’re delicious, but I wanted to create a healthier version. My homemade dilly bar recipe is dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan, and packed with protein. They don’t even have ice cream in them. How did I do it? Keep reading to find out, but they include bananas, chocolate, and peanut butter!
❤️ Why You’ll Love These Dilly Bars
- Dairy-Free Dessert: If you’re allergic to dairy, these dilly bars are an excellent way to satisfy your sweet tooth since they don’t contain ice cream.
- Delicious Cold Treat: Does it get much better than the classic flavor combo of chocolate, peanut butter, and banana? These are so good!
- High in Protein: This dessert contains many high-protein ingredients, such as peanut butter, protein powder, and peanuts.
- No Added Sugar: Ripe bananas naturally sweeten these bars.
🍫 Dilly Bar Ingredients
- Banana: Use a very ripe, mostly brown banana for the sweetest flavor.
- Yogurt: I used Harmless Harvest’s coconut yogurt to keep these healthy dilly bars dairy-free.
- Ceylon Cinnamon contains less coumarin, a compound that can “be harmful in large amounts,” than other types of cinnamon.
- Peanut Butter: Use natural peanut butter with nuts and salt as the only ingredients.
- Protein Powder: My favorite vanilla protein powder is from FlavCity, but use whatever brand you prefer.
- Peanuts add crunch and extra protein.
- Chocolate Chips: Coat the bars in melted chocolate chips. Enjoy Life’s chocolate chips are a great dairy-free option.
👩🍳 How to Make Dairy-Free Dilly Bars
- Dilly Bar Filling: In a bowl, mix the mashed banana, coconut yogurt, cinnamon, peanut butter, and protein powder.
- Form the Bars: Dollop three tablespoons of the banana mixture onto a parchment-lined sheet pan and spread it into a circle. Top each one with a few peanuts and stick a wooden stick in the bottom.
- Freeze the tray for 30 minutes to an hour until the circles are firm.
- Melt the Chocolate: Microwave your chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl in 30-second intervals and stir between each interval.
- Coat the Bars in Chocolate: Dip the bars on each side in the melted chocolate. Place them back on the tray and then freeze them for five minutes until the chocolate hardens.
Watch me make these dairy-free dilly bars on Instagram.
🗒 Variations
- For a more chocolatey bar, use chocolate protein powder.
- Want even more crunch? Use crunchy peanut butter.
🗒 Substitutions
- Cinnamon: Ceylon cinnamon can be hard to find, but regular cinnamon works too.
- Yogurt: Swap coconut yogurt with plain or vanilla Greek yogurt for even more protein.
- Nut Butter: If you prefer almond butter or cashew butter, feel free to use that instead of peanut butter.
- Nuts: Substitute peanuts for honey-roasted peanuts, cashews, or pecans.
- Allergic to nuts? Substitute peanut butter for sun butter and omit the peanuts.
- Don’t need dairy-free treats? Feel free to use Greek yogurt and regular chocolate chips.
🍽️ Best served with
Don’t miss my homemade Thin Mint cookie recipe for another gluten-free and dairy-free dessert.
👝 How to Store
Store these banana chocolate treats in the freezer in an airtight container.
🤔 Common Questions
Of course! My kiddos love these. If serving them to toddlers, they may be too large for them to eat. You could cut the circles into smaller pieces and serve them in a bowl with a spoon. Or make them more bite-size and freeze only one spoonful of the banana mixture on the popsicle sticks.
A dilly bar is coated in chocolate. I used dairy-free chocolate chips, but use whatever you have on hand.
Dairy-Free Dilly Bars
Equipment
- Sheet pan
- Parchment paper
- Popsicle sticks
Ingredients
- 1 ripe banana, mashed
- 1 cup yogurt, (I used @harmlessharvestcoconut yogurt)
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ⅓ – ½ cup peanut butter
- 1 scoop protein powder, (I used vanilla @flavcity)
- 1 handful peanuts
Instructions
- In a bowl, mix the mashed banana, coconut yogurt, cinnamon, peanut butter, and protein powder.
- Dollop 3 tablespoons of the banana mixture onto a parchment-lined sheet pan and spread it into a circle.
- Top each circle with peanuts and stick a wooden stick in the bottom.
- Freeze the tray for 30 minutes to an hour until the circles are firm.
- Microwave your chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl in 30-second intervals and stir between each interval.
- Dip the bars on each side in the melted chocolate. Place them back on the tray and then freeze them for 5 minutes until the chocolate hardens.
