Whole Food Fueling: Rice Bars

I’m a big fan of eating whole foods, and that includes during training and races. Rice bars are an awesome source of fuel and more readily absorbed by the gut (decreasing chances for GI distress and also getting energy to you faster). I’ve been experimenting with a lot of different flavors: cinnamon, cream cheese and jam, bacon egg and cheese, chocolate peanut butter, etc. Below is the basic recipe I’d recommend for the base of the bars, and then go ahead and experiment yourself!

1. Combine ~500 grams of sticky rice (risotto, Thai, sushi rice, etc) with 800 ml water. Add 3 tbsp coconut oil, 3 tbsp coconut sugar (or some other sweetener such as maple syrup, cane sugar or honey), 2 tsp Cinnamon to the rice and water. Cook the rice

2. While still hot add in whatever flavors you want. I personally always add in an entire block of cream cheese OR some sort of nut butter like peanut butter or almond butter as a great binder. Then add in jam, chocolate chips, scrambled eggs and bacon pieces (and some soy sauce), or whatever sounds good to you! MIX everything well

3. Take the cooked rice mixed with the flavors of choice and scoop everything into a gallon-sized zip-lock bag and flatten out. Throw into the fridge and let chill overnight

4. Once cooled, cut the bag off, cut into squares and the wrap each bar in aluminum foil.

5. Head out to ride and enjoy your homemade bars!

I’ll try to send you recipes on a regular basis as I LOVE to cook and have actually been working on a possible cookbook project, so this is a great place to start!  Thanks for helping to get these up!