These delicious bars feature a coconut oat crust topped with a creamy, honey-sweetened filling! If you’re a lemon lover, but don’t love all the sugar, than these healthier lemon bars are for you!
So, if these lemon bars look familiar, it’s because they are!
I’ve had this recipe on the blog for some number of years, but I wanted to perfect it a bit and give step-by-step photos to help you all make it.
The initial inspiration for creating a lemon bar was my mom (who loves lemon bars) and Ina Garten, who has a very popular lemon bar recipe. I love watching Ina’s show, however, her desserts tend to be heavy in sugar.
My recreation is made with just half a cup of sweetener…TOTAL. For nine bars, that’s less than one tablespoon per bar!
This is truly my best effort to give the you the best HEALTHY lemon bars possible.
Ingredients and substitutions
Crust
- Oat flour – Whole wheat can also be used.
- Grated unsweetened coconut
- Sea salt
- Butter – Coconut oil can substitute, but I prefer butter.
- Maple syrup – Though the filling contains honey, I prefer maple in the crust.
- Egg white
Filling
- Whole eggs and egg yolks
- Lemon juice and zest
- Honey – Choose a runnier variety for easier mixing.
- Sea salt
- Oat flour – Or whole wheat flour
Recipe steps
Step 1
Gather your ingredients.
Step 2
Make the crust. Melt the butter or coconut oil in a medium saucepan. Remove the pan from the heat, and stir in the maple syrup, salt, coconut, and flour. Stir in the egg white last; this is all done in the warm pan. Press the crust into a well-oiled 8 x 8-inch baking pan. Bake the crust for 12-15 minutes or until lightly golden around the edges.
Step 3
Make the filling. Whisk together the eggs and yolks; continue to whisk in the flour (sift it ensure there are no lumps, but it typically blends well upon whisking) and salt. Next, whisk in the honey, and finally, the lemon juice and zest. Whisk everything until smooth.
Step 4
Once the crust cools to the point of you being able to comfortably touch the pan, pour the filling atop. Bake the bars 20-25 minutes at a lowered temperature of 325 degrees Farhenheit.
Step 5
Cool completely, cut, and enjoy!
Frequently Asked Questions
The bars need to be baked longer. Jiggle the pan a bit while they are still inside the oven, and be sure that the middle is set and doesn’t appear liquid-y. If the top begins to crack, they are over baked.
The crust didn’t bake long enough. A fully baked crust should be golden around the perimeter and feel firm to the touch.
This is not awesome, and I spent many a batch trying to figure this one out. What’s happening here is the filling is being poured onto the crust when the crust is too hot. The hot crust, in essence, is semi-cooking the eggs in the filling, creating the unpleasant skin. To remedy this, wait to pour the filling until the crust has cooled, but is still warm. Basically, my little trick is that I’m able to touch the pan comfortably before I add the filling.
Recipe notes
I have tried this recipe with four eggs in the filling instead of what is written, but I prefer the posted recipe. My husband didn’t notice a big difference, so if you want to use whole eggs, this is an option. If you make it as written, you can use the extra egg white as a face mask!
If you’re a lemon lover, use the upper amount of zest in the recipe. One lemon equals about one tablespoon of zest, for reference.
For those of you allergic to eggs, my Raw Lemon Bars may be more your speed.
Healthy Honey Lemon Bars
Ingredients
CRUST BASE:
- 2 Tablespoons butter or coconut oil
- 2 Tablespoons maple syrup
- ⅛ teaspoon sea salt
- 1 cup grated coconut
- ⅓ cup whole wheat or oat flour
- 1 large egg white (save yolk for filling)
LEMON FILLING:
- 3 large eggs room temperature
- 2 large egg yolks room temperature; include the one from the crust
- ¼ cup whole wheat or oat flour
- dash sea salt
- 6 Tablespoons honey
- ⅓ cup lemon juice
- 1-2 Tablespoons lemon zest I use two lemons worth; my husband loves them lemon-y.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350℉.
- Begin with room temperature ingredients.
CRUST
- Gently melt the oil or butter in a medium saucepan. Remove the pan from the heat.
- Stir in the maple syrup, salt, coconut, and flour into the warm pan.
- Add in the egg white and stir until well combined and a bit sticky, about 20 seconds.
- In a WELL-OILED 8 x 8 baking dish, press the dough into the bottom of the dish. I usually use wet hands to prevent the dough from sticking.
- Bake the base for 12-15 minutes or until edges are golden. Lower the temperature to 325℉ once the crust comes out.
FILLING
- While the crust is baking, whisk the eggs and yolks together.
- Whisk in the flour, salt, honey, and lemon juice and zest until smooth. Sift in the flour if you're concerned about lumps.
- Pour the mixture atop the baked crust. The crust should be warm, but not piping hot. You should be able to touch the baking dish without wincing.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes at 325℉ (edges should be a light golden color). Don't overbake!
- Cool completely before cutting.
Notes
Nutrition
If you have a chance to try this recipe, please leave a star rating and a comment below letting me know how you liked it!
Shared with: Full Plate Thursday
These look amazing Lauren! Nothing says spring is coming like lemons!
I’m with you on the less sweet front. When I was a kid I would have cups of tea with my grandmother and would never have sugar in my tea. She would say I was sweet enough. 😉 I loved that.
Have a great week!
WOW that other recipe used 3 cups of sugar…obviously NOT needed because look how clean your recipe is! These bars look delish & I also love the 4 grams of protein! A girl can never have enough protein !!
Lauren, these look amazing! I LOVE lemon; it is so bright and refreshing! And I want the filling to “dominate” like you said. Pinning these! Huh, that is really interesting (about the sugar) I think it is very easy to reduce the amount of sugar in recipes without people noticing. It is too bad so much of our country thrives (or thinks they thrive) on it!
I truly, deeply love Lemon Bars, it’s one of those guilty pleasures I’ll never renounce to; no matter the sugar and butter content.
There’s actually a bakery in NYC called Two Little Red Hens that makes, hands down, the best lemon bars in the world. But they are sweet and buttery, and I feel super guilty every time I eat one.
So this recipe you’ve created is groundbreaking; I can finally have Lemon bars everyday, I mean, HELLO! 😉
Lololol, ahhhh bless you sweet Mike. 😀
These look unnnnbelievable, and I’m not even a lemon bar person! And I’m quite glad they have a few tablespoons of honey rather than 3 cups of sugar 🙂 Not sure whether I should make these or the raw lemon bars first! Yummm.
Thank you so much Erica! I love raw desserts as well (as you can tell). 😀
Hey Girl,
Too funny. My son had lemon bars at his school (the kind filled with junk) so as usual, I made him his own healthy version! Lemon bars on the mind baby. I will share mine when I return. Yipes, so many recipes building up.
Your recipe looks incredible, Lauren, as usual!!
I think you should write a cookbook!!!! Pleeeease! You’re recipes are always so amazing…and easy!
Hugs,
–Amber
How about you and I write one together? 😉 ‘The Food Allergy Duo’!
Yum YUM! I always get an immense feeling of satisfaction when I can give treats a “clean makeover”. These gems look divine, I am pinning them for later 🙂
I love Ina too, but I agree with you, she is always using a ton of sugar and butter in her recipes. I’ve been craving lemon bars for a while now and your dairy free, gluten free version looks really good!
My mom brought me lots of lemons yesterday. I’m looking for lemon bars recipe and so far this is one of the best recipes I found.
These look great! I have all the ingredients yay! 🙂
These look like a nice refreshing snack for spring! Love that they’re a vegan friendly option as well. Thanks for the share!
Hi Lauren,
Sounds like we have the same style with blogging recipe development. I think I still have about 20 post I need to finish or redo. 🙂
Love the lemon bars!
Laura O| Petite Allergy Treats
wow wow thank you so much! just made this and it is DELICIOUS! I made into a circular tart rather than cutting them out as bars! so yum 🙂
That’s so great Christine, thanks for letting me know! 🙂
Am not trying to be rude… but these are not dairy free. Eggs are in the dairy category. My allergist confirmed this when my son almost died eating them. Dairy includes egg egg is dairy
The definition of dairy is ‘food produced from the milk of mammals’, so I respectfully disagree with your comment.
I’m not trying to be rude.., but stop finger pointing. Eggs are poultry not dairy. If an allergist told you otherwise, find another allergist. Or, just try google. https://www.delish.com/food-news/a21605943/are-eggs-dairy/
I’m excited to make this tomorrow to have chilled for Mother’s Day. Lemon is mom’s favorite!
Got some of these in the oven right now. I added some coconut to the base. Can’t wait for them cool so I can dig in. Thanks for the feat recipe.
Awesome Melissa, I hope you are enjoying them! 🙂
Hi Lauren!
I tried your recipe today and my filling turned out to be really egg-y and not creamy at all! Any suggestions as to how to improve upon it? Love your website and recipes btw, bookmarked so many recipes to try out! Thank you!
Hi Audrey,
I’m sorry they didn’t turn out for you! They are going to be different than the average lemon bar, because you don’t have the excessive sugar content, but mine still turned out pretty creamy. This may be ridiculous, but did you let them cool? Also, make sure the ingredients for the filling are well-mixed. Did yours look like the pictures?
Just made these! Super yummy! I love that you can really taste the lemon and honey. I’d call these more of a “honey lemon oat bar” recipe, though, because there’s a definite oatmeal taste and texture. But maybe I just didn’t grind the oats up finely enough. I personally like oatmeal, but the texture is definitely different from regular lemon bars, at least in my batch. I also added powdered sugar to the top of mine for a little extra sweetness. Still a tasty recipe and much healthier than the regular version. 🙂
Hi Bethany,
The oats should be really fine, like flour. I’m happy you enjoyed them! This is one of my favorite recipes on the blog. 🙂
Good to know! I’ll remember that next time. I also realized that I used “extra thick rolled oats,” which probably made a difference. I shared them with my sister and she LOVED them and ate up the whole batch! 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
I’ve made these twice and my whole family loves them! I used orange almond coconut oil in the crust. I will also use this crust when making other desserts, such great flavor and texture! The texture of the lemon filling was perfectly sweet And perfectly creamy. Added bonus..they freeze well! Seriously a great treat when you’re craving something cold and sweet. Thanks for sharing:)
That’s great Cristal, thanks for letting me know! You’ve made me want to go make a batch. 🙂
Don’t know if this always happens, but my crust came up to the top when lemon filling baked. I had already put on the powdered sugar before I noticed…so we ate upside-down GF honey lemon bars! 😉 So creamy, so tasty (didn’t even tell my friends they were GF)…upside-down, right-side up, side ways, no matter how you eat them…delish!
HI Judy,
I’m not sure what happened…did you pre-bake the crust? In any case, I’m happy you ultimately enjoyed them! 🙂
Is t. One tablespoon or teaspoon and how big is one cup? Haha I only usually work in grams
Hi Abbie,
t is teaspoon, and one cup of a dry mixture is equal to about 128 grams (according to an online source). I don’t work with grams though, so I can’t be sure!
Thank you for such a quick reply! I’ve just made this and it is perfection! A great recipe! Well done xxx
I made a batch of these last night and they came out great. We’ve already eaten half the pan. Thanks so much for the recipe. I didn’t have stevia so I added an extra T of honey as suggested and it was perfect. I love how these bars are not very sweet and are so filling.
That’s great, Alisa! We just made a batch of these the other night as well, and I couldn’t get my husband to stop eating them! So glad you enjoyed them too! 🙂
I grew my own stevia and dehydrated it for the first time this year. The “storage and processing” directions I have read tell me to store it in whole leaf dehydrated form then grind it fine before use. Would this fine grinding be the same as your powdered form? Thanks.
Hi Tonya,
I can’t say for sure, but my guess is that the amount you’d have to use would be greater. Sorry I can’t be of more help!
How do you store these?
In an air-tight container, in the fridge. 🙂
WOW! Lauren, you did a fantastic job on this recipe. A lot of the other ones I looked at involved way too many ingredients that I don’t normally use. I just blogged about your site & this recipe too!!
Thanks so much Melissa! 🙂
I’ve made these twice now. Once I only had three eggs and forgot to ground the oats for filling before adding the rest of the ingredients. Turned out delicious. The other I used a little less honey and coconut sugar and used coconut oil and they were outrageous. This is adaptable and so friggin good. Can’t stop eating ’em. Thank you so much. Satisfied my sweet tooth and guilt free. Winning!!
Love all your recipes.
I made the thick raw lemon bars too and they were also super good. These are my fave though ::-))
I’m so excited to try your recipe! I recently started cutting out most refined sugar and this recipe looks so yummy without using a lot of weird ingredients 🙂 I do have a question. I’m not worried about gluten and I was wondering if you know if I can substitute all purpose or whole wheat flour instead of the oats? Or even use whole oats instead of making into a flour? Just curious 🙂 thanks!
Hi Christianne,
I would think WW or AP flour would work here, but I’m less convinced of using whole oats, as that might make the crust too crumbly. 🙂
Thanks for the quick reply!! I am going to try these this weekend and will let you know how they turn out.
Hi!
First of all…these look amazing and I can’t wait to make them. I was just wondering, what are your thoughts on using just egg whites? Also, how do you go about making the oats into flour?
Thank you in advance!! -m
Thanks Michele! I’m not sure on just using the whites, as that would cut down on fat and ultimately flavor. To make the oats into flour, I just grind them in a coffee grinder until they are fine, but I bet a food processor would work as well. 🙂
I want to make these TONIGHT buuut….. all I have is organic honey….not raw honey. Will the recipe still work?
.
Yes, that should work fine! 🙂
So this recipe looks amazing and I can’t wait to try it out, there aren’t a lot of really tasty desserts available for us poor gluten free souls. I was just wondering if gluten free flour would work just as well is ground oats?
Thanks xx
Hi Ellie,
I haven’t tried it any other way, so I can’t say for sure, but my gut is that it would work!
I am allergic to sugar and miss desserts with lemon flavoring. I can’t wait to give your recipe a try. Can I use old-fashioned oatmeal for the oats? What can I use instead of coconut sugar (I have honey & maple syrup that I can use
Yes, the old-fashioned oats will be fine, that’s actually the same thing I believe. 🙂 Honey or maple syrup should work well also, though I haven’t tried it that way myself. Hope you like these!
Made with almond flour instead of oats. Misread t for tablespoon. Taste was amazing! But base is soggy because of too much lemon juice! . Will def do again with correct quantities!
Just made these, and they are good! I put a little zest in the base, and used coconut oil (also, I used around 2T raw sugar instead of stevia). The taste is really nice, I’ll definitely make these again!
Thanks Megan, glad you liked them!
Yum yum yum! I can’t tell you how happy I am with how these turned out. I’m always hesitant about “cleaning up” certain recipes that rely on a lot of sugar or butter (usually I just skip the traditional recipe altogether and miss out on all those yummy treats!). This was such a pleasant surprise. The crust is soft and flavorful, but hardy enough to hold up to all that creamy, tangy, sweet filling. I added a squirter of agave in place of the Stevia too and it worked perfectly 🙂 Thank you!
That’s great Noelle, thanks for your comment!
Hello,
Was yyour rrecipe of T. Equivalent to a teaspoon or tablespoon?
I looked it up and T. Is interchangeable with tea and tablespoon.
Also, have you used agave nectar instead of honey? I did not have enough honey so I used agave nectar instead. I hope they don’t come out Soggy.
Hi Joyce,
T is for tablespoon, and I’ve not tried these with agave, so I don’t know, sorry! 🙂
Hi,
I made this recipe and absolutely LOVED the flavour. The only thing is that the crust was too crumbly and didn’t stay on the bars. Do you have any advice about why this might have been? Or any other flour suggestion? Almond? Coconut flour? I wonder if I ground my oats very fine or if my crust needed longer baking time? Thanks a lot in advance 😉
Hi Lorena,
It will be a bit crumbly, given that there is neither gluten nor eggs to bind it, but it shouldn’t fall completely apart. I would suggest a bit longer bake time, and then let the base cool to room temperature before topping.
Just made these and everyone loved them! Not overly sweet and the perfect lemon flavor! I used coconut sugar instead of stevia. Turned out sooo yummy!!! 🙂
-Claire: Secretly Healthy Home
I just made these ! Thank you for another Delicious recipe !
Yay, so glad you liked them, Tracy!
I have never made a dessert of this type. Thank you for this recipe. My elderly parents and I enjoyed the lemon bars.
What would be the measurements for a 9×9 pan.
Thank you again and look forward to trying your other recipes.
These were great! I was looking for a way to use extra lemons and I have honey from my own hives. Found your recipe and it is yummy! I used an egg in the crust and then added enough water to equal I/4 cup. I generally put an egg in any gluten free crust to help it hold together. The bar has the texture of corn bread with that wonderful lemon custard in the middle. I didn’t have any Stevia, so put in 2tablespoons of sugar instead. Thought the sweetness was perfect! This recipe is a keeper!
I love these. Could I use almond flour where I’m trying to cut down on carbohydrates?
What you might do is look up an almond flour crust and sub it for mine? I’m not sure about the filling though, as I haven’t tried that.
I can’t use honey nor maple syrup . What would be good substitutes and the amounts
The lemon bars didn’t live up to my expectations. The crust was meh and the lemon wasn’t lemony. The lemon stuff leaked over the sides and under crust. It wasn’t very thick on top like a normal lemon bar. I assume there’s egg white in the crust because oatflour doesn’t hold together very well. But I would rather have crumbly crust that tasted good. A shortbread can be made with 1/4 cup honey, 1/2 cup butter, 1.5 cups flour. I might try that with oatflour. Make enough so you can run the crust up the sides a bit to contain the lemon. Maybe add lemon flavoring to up the lemony ness.
Sorry you didn’t enjoy these, Wendy. I like your idea of shortbread, but that does add more sugar. I try to create my recipes to be lower in sugar, so they may not be for the average eater. What size pan did you use? I’m surprised your filling was so thin. As you can see in the photos, it is thicker than the crust, which is how I prefer my bars to be.
My daughter just broke my bottle of maple syrup. What can I use as a substitute? I have honey or light blue agave syrup?
Hi Martha,
The agave will probably be best. I hope you enjoy these!
These look so good! I’d like to make them ahead of time but don’t want to sacrifice texture – have you made them ahead and do they last well?
Hi Elinore,
These usually go pretty fast, but I have kept them in the fridge just fine. My best advice would be to bring them to room temperature before eating.
Okay, thank you!
Hello! Can I just check, are these leman bars soft and easy for elderly to eat? And if there is anyway to just use one egg instead? Thank you so much!
They are on the softer side, but I don’t know how to adjust for just one egg, sorry!