Do you struggle with increasing your protein? This is one of the common complaints that I hear from clients is that they aren’t sure how to get enough to meet their goals. One of the easiest ways to do it is to increase the portions of the meats and protein-rich foods that you’re already eating. That’s a great start, but sometimes it isn’t enough and you need little ways to sneak it into other places.
For the most part, you want to stick to whole foods like meats, greek yogurt, tofu and eggs because they’re more filling. Feeling full is a good thing, trust me. I can’t tell you how many times I ate a protein bar or drank a shake, only to find stomach growling pretty quickly. One way around this is to use part of a bar in some of the foods you’re eating. I’ll cut up a protein bar and stir part of it into my oatmeal.
It melts in and gives a great flavor to plain old oats along with a little boost of protein. I also use them as toppings on baked things like my Double Chocolate Muffins. You can also cut them up and use them on Baked Donuts or in Chocolate Banana Bread. It’s the best of both worlds – food to keep you full and protein bar to add protein.
I found a vegan brand of protein bars that I like and they come in a bunch of flavors. You can use any type of protein bar though, and it doesn’t have to be vegan. Change up the flavor by using all kinds of bar flavors too. I bet a cookie dough protein bar would be pretty divine here.
Chocolate Cherry Protein Muffins
- 1 3/4 cups (217g) white wheat flour OR all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (96g) packed brown sugar
- 1/4 cup (15g) unsweetened cocoa
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup water
- 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 Tbsp white OR apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 large egg OR 1 flax egg for vegans
- 3 Chocolate Cherry Squarebars (or other protein bar), cut into small cubes
Preheat oven to 400 degrees and place 12 paper cupcake liners in a muffin pan. Measure and combine the dry ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl. Make a well in the center and add in the wet ingredients. Mix well.
Divide the batter into the prepared muffin pan, filling each hole about 2/3 of the way full. Add 3-4 Squarebar cubes to the top of each muffin. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.
Makes 12 muffins at approximately 185 calories each – 6g protein, 29g carbs, and 5g fat.
I’m not sponsoring Squarebars but I wanted to put the brand of bar that I used for the macros. You can easily customize the recipe by using a different bar, different flavor, or even more or less cubes on each muffin. They’ll be even higher in protein with non-vegan bars too.
Make these your own breakfast creation. Toss them into a bowl of Greek yogurt or enjoy them with eggs for breakfast. If you’re interested in working with me to get meals together fast while working towards your health goals, I’d love to chat. Drop me an email, or come on over to Facebook and ask a question.
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