These blueberry bars taste like blueberry pie or crisp: in handheld form! They’re sweet and jammy, topped with buttery crumbles.
There’s something about bars that is so homey and appealing (especially if you’re from the Midwest like us!). Introducing Blueberry Pie Bars: all the flavors of blueberry pie in handheld form! These are so simple and satisfying! The same dough makes a thick bottom crust and golden buttery crumbles, and the filling is a bright burst of fresh blueberries and lemon juice. Everyone loves this summer dessert: they’re thick with just the right chewy texture.
Ingredients in blueberry bars
These blueberry bars follow the formula of a typical fruit crumble bar: the same dough is used for the crust and crumble! It makes it simple and you only need a short list of ingredients to put them together. The fresh blueberry filling seals the deal, with just the right amount of lemon to make the flavor pop (it’s required, in our opinion!). Here’s what you’ll need:
- Blueberries
- All-purpose flour
- Light brown sugar
- Granulated sugar
- Rolled oats
- Salt
- Butter
- Cornstarch
- Lemon juice
- Vanilla extract
Can you use frozen blueberries?
Want to use frozen berries instead of fresh? You can! Pies and bars are a great place to use frozen berries because they need to break down to make a jammy filling.
Full disclosure: we have not tested frozen blueberries specifically in these bars. However, frozen berries work similarly to fresh berries in our blueberry sauce, which is same basic concept as this filling. So, we feel confident sharing that this substitution will work! Let us know if you try this with frozen berries in the comments below.
Tips for blueberry bars
Blueberry pie bars are actually more like a blueberry crumble with a bottom crust! They’re simple to make, but there are a few things to note about the process. Here’s what to know:
- Grease the pan, then line the pan with parchment paper. This makes them easy to remove from the pan, because the blueberry filling can get a little sticky! Cut the parchment so that it extends on two sides to easily remove it from the pan. Greasing the entire pan helps the parchment stick to the bottom.
- Allow the bars to cool 30 minutes, then refrigerate 1 hour. This lets the texture set, firming it up so it’s the ideal texture for eating. Once you’ve refrigerated for 1 hour, you can easily cut them into 16 squares.
Storage info
How to store these blueberry pie bars once you’ve bake them up? If you stack them, make sure to store them with parchment paper between each layer so they don’t stick to each other. Then, place them in an airtight container and you can store them for:
- 3 days at room temperature
- 2 weeks refrigerated
- 3 months frozen
More blueberry recipes
Blueberries are our one of our favorite fruits to use in the kitchen! Here are a few more great blueberry recipes to use them:
- Desserts like blueberry pie, blueberry ice cream or blueberry crumble
- Drinks like blueberry lemonade or blueberry cocktails
- Breakfasts like blueberry French toast casserole, blueberry oatmeal, or blueberry waffles
- Muffins like banana blueberry muffins, lemon blueberry muffins or classic blueberry muffins
- Breads like lemon blueberry bread or blueberry banana bread
- Sauces like blueberry syrup or blueberry sauce
This blueberry pie bars recipe is…
Vegetarian.
Print
Blueberry Pie Bars
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Yield: 16 bars 1x
Description
These blueberry bars taste like blueberry pie or crisp: in handheld form! They’re sweet and jammy, topped with buttery crumbles.
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar
- 1 cup rolled oats
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 12 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 cups (18 ounces) fresh blueberries (or substitute frozen*)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- ½ tablespoon cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F. Butter 9 x 9 baking dish. Line the pan with a piece of parchment paper, cut so that it extends on two sides to easily remove it from the pan.
- In a medium bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar, oats, and salt. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or fork. As it incorporates, use fingers to knead until it becomes an even, consistent dough with no more dry bits of flour (this takes a while, so be patient!). Use your fingers to crumble it into small crumbles and measure out 1 ¾ cup for the topping.
- Pour the remaining crumbles into the prepared pan, and press it into an even layer for the crust of the bars. Use the bottom of a measuring cup to press in the dough and make it flat and even.
- In a medium bowl, mix the blueberries, granulated sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and vanilla extract. Spread them in an even layer over the crust.
- Add the reserved crumbles over the top in an even layer.
- Bake for 1 hour, until the edges are golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on cooling rack for 30 minutes. Then transfer to the refrigerator and for 1 hour. Remove from the fridge and use the parchment to remove the bars from the pan. Cut into 16 even squares. Store bars up to 1 week refrigerated (with parchment paper between the layers if stacked), or 3 months frozen.
Notes
*We have not tested this recipe with frozen berries, but it should work similarly to fresh.
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegetarian
Keywords: Blueberry bars, blueberry pie bars
Not only are these Blueberry Pie Bars incredibly tasty, but they’re also a breeze to make. Thank for share recipe!
★★★★★
Hi there – thank you so much for this recipe! Blueberries are a favorite in our home also. With three teenagers, I’m wondering if this recipe can be doubled and baked on a large 11×17 baking sheet? Photos make me think the bars are thin enough, but I’m worried about overflow, so perfectly willing to bake in two dishes. Grateful for your site – so many wonderful recipes and ideas. :)
Great question! We have not tried this before. However, a 9 x9 pan has a volume of 8 cups and a 9 x 13 pan has a volume of 14 cups, so you could try 1.5 the recipe in a 9 x 13? You could probably also even double it in a 9 x 13 and just adjust the bake time to be slightly longer since it will be a little thicker. I don’t think it would overflow! Here’s a pan size resource: https://www.joyofbaking.com/PanSizes.html
Hi, can you please clarify the cooking time of these blueberry bars? The cooking time at the top of the recipe says 40 mins but you say to bake for 1 hour in the recipe.
This was a typo — thanks for letting me know! The bake time is 1 hour!
These are so delicious and so easy to make. I made them with frozen blueberries, and they definitely worked well :) Just a question… I usually blend the butter and sugar together then add the flour/oatmeal etc., was there any reason why you added the butter to all of the ingredients? It wasn’t quite as easy to blend, but perhaps it made it more crumbly? Whatever the reason, it was yummy. Thanks for the recipe!
★★★★★
This is the way we do all our crumble and crisp recipes, and it works for bars too! But you can also do the butter and sugar first. Just personal preference! Thanks for making!
Delicious bars. My family tends to prefer less sweet fruit fillings (I usually use about half of recommended sugar in other fruit desserts like crisps and crumbles) and will reduce the sugar in the fruit next time.
One change: I used my food processor for the crumb mixture, pulsing the crumb ingredients WITHOUT THE OATS until the dough was as described, then adding in the oats and mixing by hand (don’t want to chop up the oats). Super fast and I doubt they tasted any different. I find cutting butter in to be a tedious task that I just don’t enjoy.
★★★★★