Peanut Butter Honey Protein Balls Even A Mom of 4 Has Time For

Shon and I are kicking off our pre-wedding diets this week, and I spent my entire day googling low-carb (my diet preference) peanut butter protein balls to try and a) give me a pre-workout boost, and b) satisfy my obsession with peanut butter M&Ms. After sifting through recipes for longer than I'd like to admit, I found several problems.

One, there were a lot of weird ingredients I wasn't interested in - let alone pronounce. I really just wanted stuff I keep in my cupboards. I like normal stuff.
Two, I ruined our blender several years back, and a lot of them called for a blender or food processor. Three, they all seemed to have a ton of carbs with the different grains they included.
Four, I didn't want to cook things.

So I set off to make my own. I've never really made my own recipe before, but hey, all foods started somewhere, right?

I used a basic rubber spatula to mix all my ingredients together. Who wants to dirty more dishes than necessary? Definitely not me, I hate doing dishes. Also, again, broken blender. BTW, a new one is sitting and waiting for me in my Amazon cart, in case you were wondering!

I wanted to use honey as my primary sweetener because not only am I a huge fan of the flavor, but also because it's a great natural energy source and tons of antioxidants. I threw in a little Stevia because while nutritionally it's basically nothing, a lot of other recipes I found suggested it as an added sweetener. I wanted to give mine a little sweeter taste without continuing to add too many extra carbs with the honey. I know carbs before a workout are considered good for you, but I didn't want my protein snack to totally throw off my macros for the day.

Definitely make sure to toss them in the fridge before you start forming the balls. Some other recipes I saw said to freeze the mixture. I might try that next time because the dough was getting pretty soft by the end, but I have a tendency to forget things mid-project when I'm taking care of the baby, so I didn't want to end up with a frozen chunk of peanut butter dough!

The consistency for me was sort of a soft fudge like texture. Since it's mostly peanut butter it doesn't necessarily stand up like one with oats might, but I like it because it seems like more of a treat than an energy snack with the fudgey-ness.

When I compared my nutrients with other protein ball recipes, I was happy with where it came out, but I'm definitely open to tips to making it better! They ended up being what I guess are about 1 inch balls? About the size of an avocado pit.











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Ingredients: 

2 c Hy-Vee Low Sugar, Low Sodium Creamy Peanut Butter
1/2 c (ish) GNC Pro Performance Mass XXX Vanilla Milkshake Protein Powder

• Start with about a 1/2 cup, adding more if you'd like different nutrients and/or a thicker consistency. 

2 TBSP Whipped Honey

2 Packets Hy-Vee Stevia

Instructions:

1. Scoop all the ingredients into a medium size mixing bowl.

2. Mix together with rubber spatula.

3. Refrigerate approximately 30 minutes. 

4. Roll dough into ball, cut into 1/4ths.

5. Cut each new ball into 1/4ths again, creating 16 chunks.

6. Roll back into balls and store in refrigerator.