My nut-free Paleo Pumpkin Bars are super easy to throw together and fabulous for your Halloween and Thanksgiving celebrations. We love them so much that we make them all year round. That’s because I’m a total pumpkin-a-holic!
I love all things pumpkin and squash, including these velvety nut-free Paleo Pumpkin Bars. Baking with the odd shaped, brightly colored vegetables known as winter squash is one of my favorite things! Pumpkin itself is a type of winter squash, and I use a variety of winter squash in my pumpkin recipes.
For these Paleo Pumpkin Bars I chose roasted acorn squash. You could just as easily select sugar pumpkin, a smaller, denser, tastier version of the more ubiquitous pumpkins used for jack-o’-lanterns. These Paleo Pumpkin Bars would also be great with other types of squash such as kabocha, butternut, buttercup, carnival, or delicata.
If you’re wondering how to choose a winter squash or pumpkin, look for deep saturated colors and make sure the skin is thick and clean. You don’t want to buy winter squash with dents, scuffs or cracks. Finally, check that the squash has a hard, cork-like stem.
I am often asked if canned pumpkin will work in my pumpkin recipes. For these Paleo Pumpkin Bars it will substantially change the recipe and you will need to alter your baking time quite a bit, and possibly make other changes to the recipe as well.
Fresh roasted pumpkin or another type of fresh roasted winter squash will get you the results you’re looking for with this recipe! To help you out, I have prepared a simple tutorial called How To Roast a Pumpkin in 10 Easy Steps.
Paleo Pumpkin Bars
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup coconut flour
- ¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup fresh roasted pumpkin, or winter squash, will not work with canned pumpkin
- ⅓ cup honey
- ¼ cup coconut oil
- ½ cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- In a food processor, combine coconut flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon
- Pulse in eggs, pumpkin, honey, and oil until well combined
- Stir in half of the chocolate chips by hand
- Transfer batter to an 8 x 8 inch baking dish, sprinkle remaining chocolate chips over top
- Bake at 350°F for 20-30 minutes
- Cool and serve
I love the combination of chocolate and pumpkin and so have used chocolate chips in this gluten-free pumpkin bar recipe. If you don’t like chocolate, you can simply omit it or use raisins instead.
If cooking with fresh roasted pumpkin is not your thing, try my paleo pumpkin recipes that use canned pumpkin!
Katharine says
I roasted my own pumpkin for the first time, but didn’t love these bars. The flavor is good, but they are very moist and have a custardy vibe. Perhaps I’ll follow the suggestion to add a few tablespoons of almond flour.
Katharine says
As an update, my kids were devouring these this afternoon! So, although I didn’t love them, they sure do seem to like them, and I consider that a success!
Jennifer says
Mine came out a strange consistency too, more like a baked egg dish. The chocolate all sunk to the bottom also. I was disappointed since the photo looked so promising.
Elana says
Jennifer, try making these with fresh roasted pumpkin or squash. You’ll love ’em :-)
Lyza @ Chic Shades of Green says
These look really good, I have some pumpkin puree I made in the freezer.
Kissa Powell says
This was SO good. Mine turned out VERY moist but I almost couldn’t stop eating these. LOL! Thank you for sharing this.
Jennifer says
I loved this, and my family who pokes fun at “health nuts” loved it too! I subbed butter for the coconut oil, maple syrup for the honey, and I added 1 tablespoon of almond flour. It was very soft and cakey but tasted just like chocolate chip cookies! I will try it with another tablespoon of almond flour to make it a bit drier, perhaps if I’m feeling like I want more of a cookie texture next time.
Jaclyn says
My chocolate chips all sank and made kind of a layer of chocolate on the bottom. Any tips on how to keep them dispersed throughout the bars, like your are in the picture? Thanks!
MaryD says
These are baking right now.
Substitutions/Changes — ones I make all the time with most recipes.
butter instead of oil.
3 T dark maple syrup instead of 1/3 c honey.
chunks of 88% cacao chocolate instead of 75% cacao chips.
With all the luscious ingredients they are sure to be yummy no matter what.
My question — did you grease your pan before adding the batter. I did without thinking about it and then I noticed the recipe did NOT say to grease the pan so now I am wondering. :)
MaryD says
Very tasty.
They had to bake 35-40 minutes but that is typical for my oven when baking with coconut flour.
They set up well and have a nice cake crumb.
I added nutmeg, ginger and vanilla to the cinnamon for flavoring. Still a slight egg-y taste in some bites.
I will certainly be making these again. Thanks for the idea sparkage!
DamselflyDiary says
I made these today with the following changes:
I used canned pumpkin because I had some leftover from another recipe.
I used only 3 eggs and 1 tablespoon of chia seeds and 1/4 cup water.
I had to bake for 45 minutes and the bars are still quite soggy, but cooked through and taste really good.
I think many of Elana’s recipes are too “eggy” (like the pumpkin bread which I found almost inedible because it had no flavor and a weird eggy consistency) so that’s why I used one less egg in this recipe.
In retrospect, I think canned pumpkin is more watery than fresh roasted so I should have added less water and that might have made the bars less soggy.
I will make these again but experiment with the amount of water and maybe fresh pumpkin when I have time.
Barbie says
I just baked these and substituted the fresh pumpkin for organic boxed pumpkin. Substituted the choc chips for a Green & Black’s organic 70% cocoa dark choc bar chopped up. Lastly, substituted some of the coconut oil for CannaButter. Had to bake them a little longer (40-45 min) but they turned out fabulous! The pumpkin and chocolate really lend themselves to the hint of Cannabis. I will definitely make these again. Thanks for such a wonderful recipe Elana!
Martha says
These were really good. Not very overly sweet; a nice, healthy treat. I made them per the recipe but used canned pumpkin. The consistency was just fine. I did end up baking them about 45-50 minutes tho. I’m at about 2,500 ft elevation. This was perfect for my 6 y/o son who ends up feeling deprived many times since he is gluten free. I think next time I’ll add some walnuts too. Thanks Elana!