Twenty-eight plant-based snacks. The savory ones come first, because that is what most people are actually after at four in the afternoon, then the sweet bites, then the ones you make a batch of and forget about.
Sixteen are ours. The rest are from blogs we read, and where one of those needs oil, honey or protein powder we have said so and said what to use instead.
1. Oil-Free Oven Roasted Chickpeas
Ours. Chickpeas roasted until they rattle, with no oil at all.
Dry them properly before they go in the oven. That is the whole difference between crisp and chewy.
2. Oil-Free Oven Roasted Cauliflower
Ours too. A pound of florets with smoked paprika, turmeric and garlic powder, and nothing wet on them at all.
Spread the florets out with space between them so they roast rather than steam. That is the only thing that goes wrong here. Thirty minutes, serves four.
3. Easy Oven Baked Zucchini
Ours. Zucchini rounds dusted in chickpea flour and nutritional yeast, which crisps in the oven the way breadcrumbs do.
The chickpea flour is what makes the coating stick without egg or oil. Thirty minutes, and a serving comes to 46 calories.
4. Easy Hummus
Also ours. Five ingredients and no oil, which is unusual for hummus and makes almost no difference to how it tastes.
Use the liquid from the can instead of water and it comes out smoother.
5. Easy Homemade Guacamole
Ours. One avocado stretched with a whole tomato, red onion and a third of a bunch of dill, which is not how guacamole is usually made and is better for it.
Nothing is added from a bottle, because the avocado is already the fat. Ten minutes, five servings at 153 calories.
6. Easy Vegan Cashew Cheese
Another of ours, and it sets firm enough to slice rather than spread. A teaspoon of agar agar does that. Leave it out and you have a dip instead.
Soak the cashews overnight if you can and four hours at the very least. Ten minutes after that, and it makes eight servings at 131 calories.
7. Chickpea Tuna Salad
Ours. Chickpeas mashed with dill pickles, celery and tahini. The pickles are what make it read as tuna rather than as chickpeas.
It keeps a couple of days in the fridge and goes into a sandwich better on day two. Fifteen minutes, three servings at 249 calories.
8. Chickpea Flatbread with Onions
Ours too. Chickpea flour, water and green onions with cumin and garlic powder. No wheat, no yeast and nothing to prove.
Twenty-five minutes start to finish, and it cuts into four large pieces or eight small ones at 64 calories each.
9. Creamy Cashew Stuffed Tomatoes
Also ours. Thirty small tomatoes hollowed out and filled with blended cashews, lemon and nutritional yeast.
Twenty minutes, and it is the one thing on this page that works as party food. Make the filling the day before and fill them on the day.
10. Bell Pepper Cucumber Salad
Cucumber and mini sweet peppers with rice vinegar, soy sauce, chili crisp and grated ginger.
Ten minutes, four servings, 92 calories. It sits in the fridge getting better for a couple of days.
Get the recipe from Health My Lifestyle.
11. Mango and Cucumber Salad
Mango and cucumber with basil, mint, grapes and pomegranate seeds. Seven ingredients and no cooking.
Forty-five calories a serving, which is the lightest thing on this page. The mint and basil together are what make it worth the chopping.
Get the recipe from Love Incredible Recipes.
12. Easy Baked Kale Chips
Kale with nutritional yeast, sesame seeds, chili and curry powder, baked until brittle.
104 calories for a batch that serves two. There is a tablespoon of olive oil in it, and a light spray of water plus a lower oven does the same job.
Get the recipe from Champagne Tastes.
13. 3-Ingredient Energy Balls
Ours. Dates, raw cacao and hazelnut butter. That is the entire list.
It makes six at 69 calories and takes as long as the food processor needs. The hazelnut butter is what stops it tasting like a date.
14. Healthy Chickpea Energy Balls
Ours as well. A cup of chickpeas blended with dates, cacao and peanut butter, then rolled in coconut. The chickpeas disappear entirely once the cacao is in.
The chickpeas are also why these stay soft in the fridge instead of setting hard. Ten minutes for fourteen balls at 72 calories.
15. Cranberry Oatmeal Energy Bites
Ours. Oats, cashews and dried cranberries, held together by three dates and a tablespoon of water.
Makes nine at 68 calories. The cranberries are the sharp note, and without them this is just another sweet ball.
16. Raspberry Bliss Balls
Ours too, and nut-free. Each one has a whole raspberry hidden inside it, which is the only good reason to make thirty of anything.
Coconut flour and dates do the holding rather than ground nuts. Ten minutes of work for thirty.
17. Almond Peanut Butter Bars
One of ours. Almonds, dates and peanut butter pressed into a pan and cut into bars rather than rolled, which is less fiddly than it sounds.
They firm up in the fridge and travel well in a bag.
18. Chocolate Chia Seed Pudding
Also ours. Four ingredients, one of which is a ripe banana doing all the sweetening.
Make it the night before and it sets thicker. Thirty-five minutes in total, almost all of it the chia sitting in the milk, at 189 calories.
19. Peanut Butter Dates
Four ingredients and no method to speak of. A medjool date, a teaspoon of peanut butter, three chocolate chips, a pinch of coconut.
116 calories each and it makes eight. The simplest thing on this list and the one you will actually make.
Get the recipe from Inspired Epicurean.
20. Easy Bliss Balls
Walnuts, oats, coconut and a cup of dates, blitzed and rolled. Five ingredients.
Ten minutes, makes twelve at 117 calories. If the mixture will not hold together it wants another date rather than water.
Get the recipe from Health My Lifestyle.
21. No-Bake Chickpea Cookie Dough Bites
A can of chickpeas blended with peanut butter and maple into something that tastes convincingly like cookie dough.
Fifteen minutes, makes twelve at 169 calories. There is a scoop of protein powder in the original, which you can leave out.
Get the recipe from Haute and Healthy Living.
22. 6-Ingredient Vegan Fudge
Nuts, dates, peanut butter and cacao pressed into a pan and set in the freezer.
Seventy minutes, makes twelve at 124 calories. The thirty grams of coconut oil help it set firm, and it still works without if you keep it frozen.
Get the recipe from Chef JA Cooks.
23. Healthy Homemade Granola
Ours. Freshly squeezed orange juice does the binding instead of oil, which is unusual for granola and is why this one is not greasy.
The maple syrup is marked optional, and between the raisins and the orange juice it does not need it. Twenty-five minutes.
24. Nut-Free Vegan Energy Balls
Flax, chia, hemp seeds, oats, coconut and goji berries, with no nuts anywhere, which matters if there is a school lunchbox involved.
Makes thirty-five, so this is the batch cook of the list. Forty minutes including the chilling.
Get the recipe from The All Natural Vegan.
25. 3-Ingredient Banana Oatmeal Muffins
Oats, four spotty bananas and plant milk, blended and baked. The bananas do all the sweetening.
Twelve muffins in twenty-five minutes at 124 calories each. They keep a few days out and freeze well.
Get the recipe from Health My Lifestyle.
26. Healthy Muesli Bars
Oats, nuts, sunflower seeds and peanut butter pressed into a tray and baked. Makes twelve at 208 calories.
One thing to change first. It uses a hundred grams of honey, so swap in maple syrup or date syrup and nothing else about it alters.
Get the recipe from Cinnamon and Kale.
27. Coconut Pineapple Chia Pudding
Pineapple juice, coconut milk and chia with ginger paste and cinnamon. No sugar beyond the fruit.
Ten minutes of work, makes four at 154 calories. The ginger is what stops it tasting like a dessert.
Get the recipe from The Dinner Bell.
28. Mango Fruit Roll-Ups
One ingredient. Mango pulp, spread thin and dried in a low oven for four hours.
Seventy-one calories a roll and it makes four. Almost all of the four hours is the oven working without you.
Get the recipe from Living Sweet Moments.
What a snack is actually for
Stomach stretch receptors measure volume and weight. They do not measure calories, which is why a snack can be substantial on paper and still leave you back at the cupboard twenty minutes later.
The spread is wider than most people expect. Vegetables run around 195 calories a pound, cooked starches like chickpeas and potatoes between 350 and 500, chips around 2,600 and oil 3,900. A bowl of roasted chickpeas and a small handful of chips can carry the same calories while filling the stomach to completely different degrees. The stomach is a scale, not a calorimeter.
Which leads somewhere slightly awkward for a page like this one. If four in the afternoon is a daily emergency rather than an occasional one, the snack is treating a symptom. The usual cause is a lunch built on salad and soup with no real starch in it: it fills the scale without fuelling anything, blood sugar and liver glycogen run down by mid-afternoon, and the brain goes looking for something fast and dense. Put potatoes, rice or beans into lunch and the four o’clock hunt tends to stop by itself.
Dates instead of syrup
Eight of the ten sweet bites here are held together and sweetened by dates alone, which is why they set firm without anything melted into them.
If a mixture is crumbling, add another date rather than more liquid.
And, always, seek health consciously.
