When I was growing up, we never had anything with added sugars. Naturally occurring sugars in fruit and such were okay. But if we wanted something sweetened, it was with honey.

My kids aren’t huge fans of many of the recipes from my childhood because of this, but I keep trying various recipes out on them. These Peanut Butter power balls have been a hit for years, though. That’s probably why we almost always had a batch of these on hand when I was a kid, too. They’re sweet enough to feel like a treat to my kids, but have wholesome ingredients.

Grammy called them Peanut butter oat balls but we changed it to “power” because kids are funny and tend to wrinkle up their noses at words like “oat” even though they have no problem eating them. I originally shared this recipe a few years back over on The Soccer Moms site, and it was really popular, so I’m sharing it here with you.

These peanut butter power balls are simple enough that you could put your kids in charge of making them. There are some variations and substitutions that I’ll note. But even my pickiest eater eats these- actually requests these.

Peanut Butter Power Balls

• 3/4 cup dry milk
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 3/4 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 tablespoons HOT water
• 1/3 cup raisins (optional- I usually leave these out- see note)

Directions

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Mix well. Shape into 1″ balls(I usually use my cookie scoop). Makes 3 dozen. Store in the fridge or even the freezer.

Notes

• A friend of mine subbed protein powder for the dry milk powder and said she really liked them that way.
• When we had these growing up, we always used natural peanut butter. My kids prefer the texture of “regular” peanut butter so that’s what I use. It does make it a little harder to shape the peanut butter balls, which is why I usually use my cookie scoop.
• You could add chocolate chips instead of raisins. I have only done this once since I feel like this recipe is pretty healthy and I’ll save the chocolate for something else, but it’s definitely an option.