Well, hello there! Summer is coming to an end where I live, so I’m back to making myself more snacks instead of avoiding the heat of the kitchen. These vegan keto dark chocolate sesame bars may not look like much, but they’re surprisingly delicious, and CRISPY. Yes, you read that right, crispy. If you’ve been doing keto for any amount of time, you probably know how difficult it is to find crispy snacks that are low carb and vegan.

Anywho, the ingredients for this are insanely simple. In fact, you basically only need toasted sesame seeds and a dark chocolate of your choice (or any chocolate of your choice). I like using toasted sesame seeds because they add a little more flavor than raw seeds, and also give that nice bit of crispiness that is so hard to find in most snacks. You can, of course, add sweeteners or flavoring if you like. I typically add cinnamon, vanilla extract and a smidge of stevia. Sometimes I’ll use powdered espresso in place of the cinnamon. The choice is yours!

The dark chocolate I usually use is this one, from Thrive Market. I like it because it’s 100% organic cacao from a great company that supports the farmers and environmental conservation. So, wins all around. I usually try not to get on a soapbox, but I believe that if you can’t have chocolate without slave labor, maybe we shouldn’t have chocolate? Along those lines, slavefreechocolate.org lists companies that produce chocolate in a fair way to everyone in the labor chain. So, I like to check the site before buying any chocolate.

Because this recipe uses minimal ingredients, it’s pretty friendly to most dietary needs. These bars are not only vegan (so, dairy-free and egg-free) and keto (sugar-free), they’re also nut-free, gluten-free, soy-free, coconut-free, top-8 allergen-free and paleo friendly. Whew. That’s a lot! I just really like making recipes that are accessible to as many people as possible.

Notes On Making Vegan Keto Dark Chocolate Sesame Bars (gluten-free, sugar-free, nut-free, top 8 allergen-free)

• I used toasted sesame seeds, but if you only have raw ones and don’t want to toast them, that works, too!
• You could also use hemp seeds in place of the sesame, or even sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds. Keep in mind that the larger the seed is, the more difficult it will be for them to stick together.
• While I prefer to use this chocolate from Pascha, you can use whatever brand you like!
• I usually use a plain liquid stevia for this recipe, but every once in a while I like to get fancy and use 2 tablespoons of my favorite sugar-free maple syrup, as it’s absolutely DELICIOUS (and you can save 15% with the code MEATFREEKETO).
• You can also avoid adding sweetener if you use a sweetened sugar-free chocolate.
• Variation: Protein bars – melt 50g of coconut manna (or a nut/seed butter of your choice) with the cacao butter, and stir one scoop (~30g) of your favorite sugar-free protein powder in with the seeds.
• While I strive to provide accurate nutritional information, different brands have different nutritional profiles, so your calculations may vary.

Vegan Keto Dark Chocolate Sesame Bars (gluten-free, nut-free, paleo)

Print Recipe

These vegan keto dark chocolate sesame bars are so easy to make, and are a delicious snack!

Course Snack

Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Chill Time 45 minutes mins

Total Time 50 minutes mins

Servings 6 bars

Calories 156

Ingredients

• 50 g sugar-free chocolate
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 100 g toasted sesame seeds
• pinch of salt
• stevia to taste

Instructions

• Using your preferred chocolate-melting method (I usually heat a pot of water and melt the chocolate in a bowl on top of this), melt the chocolate and coconut oil (about five minutes). If the mixture is a little sticky (which it may be, depending on the chocolate used), you can add in another tablespoon of coconut oil to smooth it out.
• Once melted, remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract, sesame seeds, salt, stevia and any spice you want until the mixture is thoroughly combined.
• Scoop the mixture into 6 lined wells of a muffin tin or a silicon ice cube tray, compact so that the mixture is dense and sticks together and freeze/refrigerate for at least an hour to set up. Store in the fridge (or freezer) to make sure they stay solid.

Notes

To calculate net carbs - subtract the grams of fiber and sugar alcohols (if applicable) from the total grams of carbohydrates in the recipe.

Nutrition

Serving: 1 | Calories: 156kcal | Carbohydrates: 7g | Protein: 3.8g | Fat: 14.2g | Fiber: 5.2g | Sugar: 1g