Homemade Crunch Bars

12 servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cooling Time 20 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes

Homemade Crunch Bars are an easy candy bar made with Rice Krispies Cereal, chocolate chips and just a touch of sea salt made in just 10 minutes! You’ll never buy the pre-made version again.

If you like desserts like Rice Krispies Treats and rich Chocolate Fudge, you should try out this recipe for a dessert based on one of the world’s favorite candies. Crunch bars have been around since the early 1900s and are a great snack to grab on the go.

Chocolate Crunch BarsCRUNCH BARS

Are Crunch Bars your favorite candy bar? Even though you can find Crunch Bars in almost every grocery store in the United States, if you’ve got a craving for creamy milk chocolate and crisped rice but don’t feel like leaving the house you can try my recipe for a homemade version.

Orrrrrr if you love them but you’ve always felt like they would be WAY better if they weren’t milk chocolate, you’ve come to the right place.

The nice thing about making chocolate bars yourself is that you know for a fact that there are no artificial flavors or preservatives in them, unless you happen to have a huge vat of soy lecithin on hand you’ve been trying to get rid of (which raises a lot of questions).

The main reason I like to make this chocolate bar at home is I prefer to use a semi-sweet chocolate for the candy bar instead of milk chocolate! The flavors are so much more pronounced and with just a touch of sea salt added in, this easy recipe may just be your new favorite dessert.

Now don’t get me wrong, if you want to make this the original way, you melt milk chocolate chips then fold them into rice krispies cereal and allow it to re-harden. Voila, perfect copycat of Original Crunch Bars!

The nice thing about this dessert recipe is that you can easily store crunch bars in the fridge to keep them good for a very long time. You can also customize them easily, so if you’re craving fluffy marshmallows or chopped nuts you can easily add them in to make my recipe your new favorite candy.

HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE CRUNCH BARS

  • Start off by lining a baking pan with parchment paper.
  • Melt your chocolate chips in a microwave in 30 second increments.
  • Once the chocolate chips are completely melted, pour it into a large bowl and stir in the rice cereal.
  • Spread the mixture over the parchment papered pan.
  • Sprinkle sea salt over the top and put the whole thing in the fridge.
  • Let the crunch bars sit until they have set and then slice them into bars and serve them up.

Pan of Crunch Bars

VARIATIONS

  • Dark Chocolate: try using dark chocolate chips instead of milk chocolate or semi-sweet. You can also melt dark chocolate and white chocolate together in a swirl pattern to give your crunch bars a cool marbled look.
  • Mix-ins: before you put the batter into the fridge, mix in peanut butter, melted caramel, extra chocolate chips or peanut butter cups, chopped nuts or mini marshmallows to give your crunch bars a personal touch.
  • Fun Size: after the mixture has set in the fridge and you’re ready to cut it up, instead of slicing it into bars cut into bite sized squares. These “fun sized” pieces are perfect served on top of Vanilla Ice Cream.

History of the Crunch Bar

  • Nestlé is a Swiss company that was founded in 1866, which makes it older than milk chocolate.
  • The crunch bar was invented in 1928 and it became Nestlé’s best selling candy bar in the United States in 1994.
  • In 2013, Nestlé announced a plan to responsibly source chocolate at the National Confectioners Association’s Sweets & Snacks Expo in Chicago. Rumors also started around then that a lot of Nestlé products would no longer be available in the United States.
  • Nestlé sold the rights to the Crunch Bar to Ferrero, the Italian company that makes everything from Kinder Eggs to the aptly named Ferrero Rocher, in 2018.
  • The Hershey Company has a similar product called a Krackel bar that was invented in 1938. It’s basically the same thing, because who can argue with how well chocolate and crisped rice go together?

The history of the Crunch Bar is basically a chocolate bar soap opera. A delicious one.

Piece of Chocolate Crunch Bar

How to Store Homemade Crunch Bars?

  • Serve: Mass produced Crunch Bars have a ton of sugar and almost no moisture in them, which keeps them from growing bacteria for a long time. They also have preservatives in them to increase their shelf life. Since homemade Crunch Bars don’t have either of these things going for them, you should keep them refrigerated to make sure they stay good for longer. Plus, no one likes a melted candy bar.
  • Store: Chocolate candy bars can stay good in the fridge for up to 12 months. Because these ones are homemade, please eat them within 2 weeks.
  • Freeze: You can freeze these Crunch Bars for up to three months (make sure they’ve hardened in the fridge and cut them into bars first!) They defrost well if they’re contained in something airtight, and stay fresher longer.

More Delicious Candy Recipes:

Copycat Crunch Bars

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Homemade Crunch Bars

Homemade Crunch Bars are an easy candy bar made with Rice Krispies Cereal, chocolate chips and just a touch of sea salt made in just 10 minutes! You'll never buy the pre-made version again.
Yield 12 servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder

Ingredients
 

  • 24 ounces chocolate chips 2 bags
  • 4 cups Rice Krispies Cereal
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (optional)

Instructions

  • Line an 8x8 baking pan with parchment paper.
  • Melt the chocolate in a microwave safe glass bowl in 30 second increments, stirring each time, until full melted.
  • Fold in the cereal until full coated then pour into your 8x8 baking dish.
  • Spread the mixture out evenly and sprinkle over the kosher salt.
  • Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes until the chocolate has completely hardened before slicing with a very sharp knife to avoid crumbling.

Nutrition

Calories: 320kcal | Carbohydrates: 47g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 13g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Cholesterol: 9mg | Sodium: 136mg | Potassium: 12mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 36g | Vitamin A: 750IU | Vitamin C: 6.3mg | Calcium: 66mg | Iron: 3.5mg
Keyword: chocolate, Crunch Bar

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. If you enjoyed the recipe and would like to publish it on your own site, please re-write it in your own words, and link back to my site and recipe page. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. Actually, lecithin is an emulsifier, not a preservative. It’s purpose is to keep water and oils mixed. It’s also used as a supplement to lower cholesterol

  2. To double this recipe would a 9×13 pan work? Looks delicious and cant wait to make! Enjoy all your posts!