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!
Diane says
I made a double batch of these to take to Thanksgiving dinner, and they were wonderful!
I doubled all ingredients except honey (added a dash of maple syrup too), eggs (only used 4), and pumpkin (used one 15 oz. can from Trader Joe’s…very little liquid in it). I baked them in a 13×9 glass pan for only 30 minutes, and the toothpick came out clean – no soggy center! :)
With the addition of some homemade butter frosting sweetened with a bit of organic cane sugar and maple syrup, these were a heavenly dessert that my gluten-intolerant kids could enjoy for Thanksgiving. Thanks for the awesome recipe, Elana!
Elana says
Diane, thanks for letting us know these were wonderful!
Meagan says
Wow! Made these to bring to Thanksgiving. These taste just like pumpkin pie minus the crust. Huge hit. I will be making these again & again. Thank you!
Elana says
Glad to hear these were a huge hit Meagan!
Meghanne says
I just made these last night. So delicious! As some of the other comments mentioned the addition of vanilla is lovely! I used organic canned pumpkin and just added an additional 1tbs of coconut flour to account for the increased moisture content. Turned out beautifully after about 43mins in the oven. I also used a round cake pan. It was like a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie cake. Served with coconut milk ice cream, it was a delightful addition to my sunday night dinner. Thank you!
Elizabeth says
You are an angel for posting this! I was dying to try these but stopped when I realized I had to roast my own pumpkin!
Rachel C says
These are simply delicious!!! I have baked them every week since you posted the recipe, and family and friends have all loved them. Most of the people I’ve shared them with are not gluten free, but all have loved them!!
These bars made a little girl’s day a few weeks ago. She is eight years old and is gluten intolerant. I brought these bars for snack for our homeschool group activity and this little girl was so happy that she could have them that she was jumping up and down!! She went over and counted them and figured out that there were enough for everyone to have two of them, though her mother said she could only have one. I left her some extras!!
Thanks Elana!!
Darla says
I’m looking forward to trying these! For everyone who is using canned pumpkin ( the recipe says it won’t work, probably because of the moisture content) here is an idea I got from an America’s Test Kitchen video for pumpkin cheesecake. Line a colander with good paper towels or tea towel and soak up as much of the excess liquid as possible. There is a lot!
Renee H says
I’m new to this blog and baked the paleo pumpkin bars for the first time today, to take to a party. I made them with roasted butternut squash and they were amazing! The scent of them baking was so lovely, definitely a must for the holiday season!
Looking forward to trying your other recipes using coconut flour and coconut oil (my new favorite oil)!
Katie Cunningham says
I made these, and they’re fab!
My modifications:
Added some allspice, because while I’m grinding spices, why not?
Used canned pumpkin. Squeezed as much moisture as I could out of it with some cheesecloth.
Added golden raisins, because I freaking love golden raisins.
Upped the bake time to 40 minutes.
Even my mother, who’s a bit anti-paleo, admitted that they were yummy without adding any extra sweetener or icing.
Chrissy says
I made these with organic canned pumpkin and I added 2 Tbsp of coconut flour and 1/2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice. They turned out exactly how I wanted them, thick & cakey, enough to cut into bars no problem! LOVE this recipe!
Gabrielle says
I doubled all the other ingredients & used one small can of pumpkin, & baked in a 8 x 12 Pyrex pan (which I greased with coconut oil on the second attempt, after a lot of trouble dislodging the bars from the pan the first time around). Maybe the canned pumpkin worked ok because I’m in Erie, PA & therefore close to sea level. This recipe has quite the fan following here now! Thanks, Elana!
Ashley says
My second batch in 12 hours is in the oven now! Big hit with my picky eaters – thank you, Elana!!