12 Kid-Friendly Energy Ball Recipes Made Without Protein Powder

Looking for a quick, healthy snack made with real food ingredients? Here are 12 kid-friendly energy ball recipes made without protein powder. 

Hi friends!

Let’s talk about snacks for a minute, shall we? More specifically, snacks for Squish. Because lord knows he eats a lot of them. In fact, he pretty much eats every 2 hours all day long. We’ve tried giving him bigger meals and it just doesn’t work well for us. So for now, we’re sticking with three main meals and 3-4 snacks during the day.

These aren’t giant snacks by any means, but they do occur multiple times per day, so I do my best to make sure they’re minimally processed, made with real food ingredients, and full of nutrients.  Some of his favorites include:

• Sweet Potato Bites
• String cheese
• Hard boiled eggs
• Avocado or peanut butter toast
• Smoothies
• Raisins
• Popsicles (made with sweet potatoes, prunes & pb)
• Jello (made with grape juice and gelatin)
• Anything dipped in hummus
• Energy balls

I try to rotate through this list to keep him from getting bored, but if I had to name one thing I make sure to prep every single week to have on hand, it’s energy balls. He absolutely loves my Lemon Energy Balls but he’s also a fan of my no-bake mint chocolate version (i make them without the crushed peppermint when it’s not Christmas time!)

Kid-Friendly Energy Ball Recipes

I love them because it’s so easy to make a batch ahead of time and pop them in the freezer and just pull them out whenever we need a quick snack. I’ve decided that since we’re eating them weekly, it’s about time I start branching out a little bit and trying some new flavor combos. Instead of doing all the work myself, I turned to some of my blogger friends and asked them to share their favorite energy balls and bites!

Note that while a lot of energy balls are made with protein powder, for this roundup, I chose only recipes that do not include protein powder. You guys know I’m not a huge protein powder user myself (although I do use it to make my No Bake Protein Bars), but I don’t feel it’s something Squish needs to be eating at his age.

So here’s the list I came up with, including a few of my favorites from The Bean archives:

Lemon Energy Balls

No-Bake Mint Chocolate Bites

Pumpkin Energy Balls

Apple Cinnamon Cookie Energy Bites via Kristine’s Kitchen Blog

Dark Chocolate & Blueberry Energy Bites via The Creative Bite

Cherry Larabar Balls via Eating Bird Food

Key Lime Pie Energy Bites via Peas and Crayons

Chocolate Coconut Pistachio Bites via Cotter Crunch

Raw Vegan Brownie Bites via Happy, Healthy Motivated

Dark Chocolate Coconut Almond Butter Energy Bites via Joyful Healthy Eats

Strawberry Cheesecake Swirl Energy Balls via The Healthy Maven

PB & J Swirl Energy Bites via Fit Foodie Finds

So if you need me, I’ll be in the kitchen working my way through this list with my little assistant. Which should we try first?!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–