Update Review, 2015-2020 Tastings
Since I've reviewed Nature Valley before, I'll skip an intro, but, this time I tried all different products. Spoiler: while I still don't care for crunchy granola bars, the biscuits (aka breakfast cookies) were good!Sweet & Salty Nut Bars
I've never been a huge fan of granola bars, as you know from my previous reviews. In fact, I can't think of a single regular granola bar that I have ever liked ... except for Nature Valley's Sweet and Salty Nut Bars, the peanut variety. I discovered them at Burning Man, when someone in my camp packed the peanut flavored ones, and I became hooked. The peanut coating got crazy melty in the heat, and they were such decadent treats.
And then I didn't have another for years. Until now.
The Sweet & Salty Nut Bars come in a number of varieties: peanut, almond, cashew, roasted mixed nut, dark chocolate, peanut & almond, and chocolate pretzel nut. The peanut ones were the only kind I had had before, but the ones with chocolate do sound even more tempting.
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| Almond Sweet & Salty Nut Bar. |
"Nature Valley® Sweet & Salty Almond Granola Bars are a perfect balance of chewy granola and delicious real almonds, dipped in an almond butter coating."
This time I had the almond flavor. Sure, I don't like almond butter nearly as much as peanut butter, and my fond memories were of the peanut bars, but I was traveling, and American Airlines had these in one of the Flagship lounges. I couldn't resist, even though I knew the bar wouldn't get all melty like I wanted.
It was ... ok. Basically a chewy granola bar, with nice crunchy almonds in it. The almond butter coating only covered one side, and wasn't nearly as tasty as I recalled the peanut butter coating being.
This was fine, but I wouldn't get another. It made me want a peanut one, but, they didn't ahve them, because, likely, allergies.
Biscuits
Nature Valley makes 3 varieties of biscuits (blueberry, honey, and lemon poppy seed), basically, breakfast cookies, much like Belvita (which I love!). And then, they also make ... biscuit sandwiches. You know, stuffed breakfast cookies. These come with assorted butter fillings: peanut butter, almond butter, cocoa almond butter, and even coconut butter, all paired with a different flavor of biscuit (peanut butter, cinnamon, honey, toasted coconut, respectively). I thought it was interesting that besides the simple honey flavor, these additional biscuit flavors weren't available just as biscuits.
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| Almond Butter. |
I was shocked how much I liked this. I'll just start there. I guess, I did love the belVita biscuits, so maybe it isn't that surprising, but, I'm not really an almond butter fan, and the almond butter sandwich didn't sound particularly interesting, with simple cinnamon biscuits.
But it was great. Each package contains only one biscuit sandwich, but that single biscuit sandwich is quite large, each biscuit about the size of two thin cookies, so, 4 small cookies overall. Plus filling, of course.
The biscuits, much like the soft bars, were extremely flavorful, strong cinnamon, really strong cinnamon, but in a good way. They were sweet, spicy, and crunchy. Perfect breakfast cookies!
The filling too was good, fairly creamy, generous portion, sweetened honey roasted almond butter.
These reminded me a bit of a very amped up Nutter Butter - obviously almond butter and not peanut butter, and mega sized, and loaded with cinnamon, and, I was convincing myself it was a breakfast item to have with my morning coffee, but, the similarities were there. I'm sure the peanut butter variety would be even more similar.
Overall, this was quite enjoyable, and I immediately abandoned my plans to try a bite for this review and pass off to my partner. Nope, it was all mine. It hit all the notes - texture of the crispy cookie and creamy filling, sweetness balanced by spicy cinnamon ... a winner.
Crunchy Granola Bars
No, I haven't suddenly decided I like crunchy granola bars, but, my partner was sent a snack box with these in it, so I gave them a try.
I still find these just not to be a product I have any particular use for. They are *super* crispy, and I always decide to just crumble them up and use like granola or ice cream toppings.
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| Oats 'n Dark Chocolate. |
The random one included in his box was probably my second choice of flavor (peanut butter dark chocolate would be the one I wanted ...).
It was ... uh, boring? I expected chunks of dark chocolate, but rather, it was just chocolate throughout I guess. Honestly didn't taste any real chocolate component to it, although it has both dark chocolate and cocoa in it.
It was also really quite sweet, sweeter than I expected, I guess with sugar as the second ingredient, and honey, and brown sugar syrup both added, this makes sense.
And besides all the sweet and very mild-not-really-there chocolate, the only other things in it are whole grain oats and rice flour. So, fairly wholesome I guess, but also, just, boring.
Sweet, crispy, I crumbled onto ice cream. Definitely wouldn't get again.
The package has 2 bars, making up a serving, 190 calories, only 3 g protein, and 12 g sugar. Not particularly nutritionally interesting.
Original Review, 2014
Another Friday, another granola bar product line review. And still, no real winners. I keep trying!I had hope for Nature Valley. Many years ago, I discovered their Sweet & Salty Nut Bars, specifically, the peanut variety. They are basic granola bars, loaded up with plentiful peanuts, and coated in this amazing salty, peanut buttery dip. Such intense peanut flavor, perfect mix of sweet and salty, and really, really good if you let them get a bit warm, so they are soft, and the peanut butter topping gets all melty. Such fond memories of these delicious treats!
This time around, I decided to branch out and explore the rest of Nature Valley's product line. They make all the styles of granola bars that you would expect: standard crunchy or chewy, protein enhanced, trendy greek yogurt covered, diet style thin crisps, and even breakfast biscuits. None of the varieties I tried this time around even remotely live up to those magic sweet and salty nut bars of my memories though.
Chewy Trail Mix Bars
The "Trail Mix" line is chewy style, loaded with different fruits and nuts. The classic is the "fruit & nut", but they also have a more specialized Cranberry & Pomegranate and Dark Chocolate Cherry bars.
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| Fruit and Nut Chewy Trail Mix Bar. |
"Three different kinds of nuts and seeds with dried cranberries and raisins."
... or so says the description. The ingredients label however lists only two types of nuts (peanuts, almonds), not three. And no seeds. But yes, there were dried cranberries and raisins, in addition to the oat base.
It was very sweet, with lots of sugar syrup binding together the already sweet raisins and dried cranberries. The only other filler was the oats. Not really my thing.
Subsequent tasting notes: [ Meh, generic, sweet granola bar. ] [ Nuts aren’t really good quality either. ] [ It was a chewy bar, but mostly just loaded with sweet binding agent. Did not like. ]
Protein Bars
The protein bars are classic chewy style, loaded with nuts and rice crips, plus extra protein hidden inside via my "favorite" form, soy protein isolate - yum! They do all have tasty looking coatings. Flavors range from coconut almond bars with a coconut flavored coating, salted caramel nut, peanut almond or peanut butter, both with chocolate chips and dark chocolate coating, and mixed berry with Greek yogurt coating. They boast about 10 grams of protein each.
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| Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Protein Bar. |
They need to work on their description ... "flavored with rich dark chocolate"? Is that supposed to sound appealing?
Anyway. This did look pretty good, puffed rice, whole roasted peanuts, mini chocolate chips, and, although you can see it in the picture, the bottom was all coated in chocolate too.
Even though there were peanuts, I didn't taste any of the namesake peanut butter, or even just peanuts really. The overwhelming flavor was that strange funk of soy protein isolate and whey protein, the magic ingredients turning this granola bar into a protein powerhouse with 10 grams of protein.
I didn't like this, and wouldn't get again. Even the greatness of chocolate and peanut butter couldn't overcome the strange protein bits, unlike the actually really tasty Peanut Butter Whey Protein Fit Crunch Bar I reviewed last week.
"Nature Valley® Peanut Butter Crunchy Granola Bars combine whole grain rolled oats, crisp rice, and peanut butter to produce a sweet and wholesome snack."
Granola Thins
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Dark Chocolate Granola Thin.
"Delicate squares of granola with a unique, delightfully crispy texture. Each thin is paired with a delicious melt-in-your-mouth dark chocolate flavor."
This was a very thin, very crisp granola bar with good peanut butter flavor flavor. The chocolate layer on the bottom was decent dark chocolate. Overall, pretty good, particularly for a crunchy style bar, which I don't normally love. The chocolate and peanut butter combination was a winner, and the ratio of bar to chocolate was just right.
Crunchy Bars
Crunchy bars are available in a slew of flavors, ranging from the basic Oats 'n Honey to nutty (peanut butter, roasted almond, pecan) to fruity (apple crisp, coconut) to fall inspired (cinnamon, maple brown sugar).
They aren't joking when they call these "crunchy", certainly the crispiest bars I've ever found on the market.
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| Crunchy Peanut Butter. |
This was crazy crisp. I know they are called "crunchy", but I wasn't quite expecting it to be soooo crispy.
Like the granola thin, it had a really nice peanut butter flavor. Better than most granola bars I've had lately, which makes me think that perhaps I like the crunchy ones more then chewy ones?
Subsequent tastings: [ Meh, too crunchy ] [ Very very crispy, decent peanut butter flavor ] [ Crispy, kinda honeyed peanut flavor, not bad ] [ Great when you want some serious crunch, fantastic peanut flavor, almost caramelized flavor to it. ]
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Crunchy Oat & Honey.
"Nature Valley® Oats `n Honey Granola Bars combine real honey and rolled oats, to produce a sweet, wholesome snack."
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