If you love making easy summer dessert recipes to bring with you to gatherings, potlucks, or as a surprise for co-workers like I do, you’ll love this no bake golden graham s’mores bar recipe! I’ve been making these bars for over a decade (they’re my hubby’s favorite), and they’re always a hit. Our recipe only uses 4 ingredients, needs about 10-minutes of hands-on time, and has easy-to-follow instructions so you can whip up a successful batch of bars the first time.
If you love easy no bake desserts with cereal, be sure to try our cocoa krispie treats, lucky charm treats, and our fruity pebbles treats too!
Why You’ll Love Smore’s Bars with Golden Grahams
Level of difficulty: Easy. These golden graham cereal bars are one of my favorite quick and easy desserts to make at home! The hardest part is not eating the ingredients while you’re prepping your bars.
Flavor: Graham, marshmallow, and chocolate are all equally predominant flavors in this s’mores dessert bars recipe.
Texture: You get a nice crunch from the graham cereal paired with ooey-gooey marshmallow…very similar to a rice krispie treat.
Time: It will take you about 10 minutes to prepare your cereal bars, then you need to let them set up for about 25 minutes (otherwise it’s a sticky gooey mess…which I’m not opposed to, but they just aren’t really dessert bars yet when you dig in too soon).
S’mores Bar Ingredients
- Graham Cereal: The graham cereal gives you that pop of graham cracker flavor you need for a true s’mores experience, but holds up much better than actual graham crackers for these cereal bars. I use Golden Grahams when making this recipe.
- Marshmallows: I usually use the larger jet-puffed marshmallows when making my s’mores bars, but mini marshmallows will work just as well.
- Chocolate Chips: I use dark chocolate chips when making this cereal bars recipe, but use whatever type of chocolate you love the most! You could even chop up a chocolate bar you’d usually use for campfire s’mores!
- Salted Butter: You need just a little bit of butter to help your marshmallows from just being straight up sticky. The butter really helps to tame the mallows as they heat, in turn making putting your dessert bars together much easier.
See recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and measurements.
How To Make S’mores Bars With Golden Grahams
Heat your marshmallows with butter: Place the butter and marshmallows in a large microwave safe bowl, and microwave in 30 second increments. Stir after each 30 second increment to incorporate the butter. Repeat until marshmallows are poofy and melted. This will take approximately 4 rounds (or 2 minutes) to complete, depending on your microwave.
Stir in your graham cereal: Stir in 5 cups of graham cereal until evenly distributed. If additional cereal is desired to obtain your perfect cereal-to-marshmallow ratio, stir in up to 1 additional cup of cereal.
Make your bars: Gently press about half of your cereal and marshmallow mixture into a 9×13 pan. Sprinkle half of the chocolate chips over the bottom layer, and gently press the second half of the cereal and marshmallow mixture into your pan. Top with remaining chocolate chips and additional cereal pieces.
Let your bars set up: Let your s’mores bars set up for 20-30 minutes before cutting.
Serve and enjoy!
How To Store Smore Bars
Store leftover s’mores bars in an air-tight container on the countertop for up to 3 days (I will be impressed if they last that long!)
S’more Bars FAQs
When using my glass 9×13 pan, I have never needed to coat my pan for this recipe. However, if you are nervous about your s’mores bars sticking to your pan you have a few options. You can lightly grease your pan with non-stick cooking spray or butter or line it with parchment paper.
You can use either type of marshmallow for this cereal bars recipe! I generally get the larger jet-puffed marshmallows, but if I have the small style in my cabinet I wouldn’t hesitate using those either.
You have lots of options here! I like to use dark chocolate chips in my s’mores bars. If you’d prefer milk chocolate chips or semi-sweet chocolate chips – go for it! You could also cut up your favorite chocolate bar to put into your s’mores dessert bars too.
If you’re wanting to toast your marshmallows, we’ll need to assemble our bars a little differently than I’ve noted in the recipe card.
First, be sure use mini marshmallows and reserve about ⅓ of them to sprinkle on top of the bars. Once assembled, either place your pan in your oven under the broil setting for 1-2 minutes until golden brown or use a kitchen torch to quickly toast the mini mallows. Then allow the bars to set as directed in the recipe card before cutting.
Because we haven’t tested it, we won’t recommend swapping out golden grahams for something else at this time. We’ve used golden graham cereal for this recipe for a few reasons. First, they bring that graham cracker taste while also holding up well in our bars. Second, they’re easy to find at most stores. Third, they’re a cost effective option for making these bars.
Love This Recipe? You May Also Enjoy
Smore Bars (with Golden Grahams)
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoon salted butter
- 1, 12 oz package jet puffed marshmallows
- 5-6 C graham cereal (Golden Grahams)
- 1 C dark chocolate chips, divided
Instructions
- Place the butter and marshmallows in a large microwave safe bowl, and microwave in 30 second increments. Stir after each 30 second increment to incorporate the butter. Repeat until marshmallows are poofy and melted (approximately 4 rounds / 2 minutes cook time total)
- Stir in 5 cups of graham cereal until evenly distributed. If additional cereal is desired to obtain your perfect cereal-to-marshmallow ratio, stir in up to 1 additional cup of cereal
- Gently press about half of your cereal and marshmallow mixture into a 9×13 pan*
- Sprinkle half of the chocolate chips over the bottom layer, and gently press the second half of the cereal and marshmallow mixture into your pan. Top with remaining chocolate chips and additional cereal pieces
- Let set for 20-30 minutes before cutting
- Serve and enjoy!
- Store leftover s’mores bars in an air-tight container on the countertop for up to 3 days
Lynn says
I made these for a friend’s bbq and everyone loved them! So easy too!
Meredith says
I’m so happy to hear these s’mores bars were a hit! Thanks for giving this recipe a try Lynn 🙂
Sara's Tiny Kitchen says
These are delicious!! My husband and I ate the whole pan in 3 days! I will definitely be making them again!
ourlovelanguageisfood says
I’m so glad you that you both liked them so much Sara! Thank you for making my recipe, I appreciate it!