Healthy Lemon Bars

Healthy Lemon Bars

I have been craving lemon bars for the last couple of weeks ever since Spring happened. Lemon bars have a shortbread cookie crust and a creamy lemon filling made with eggs, lemon, and sugar. Lemon bars are not hard to make at all and were super easy to my surprise.  Only 126 calories and 6 smart points for 1 bar! I used my food processor to help make the crust instead of a pastry cutter and the custard ingredients you just simply whisk together in a bowl. If you don’t want lemon bars to use another citrus such as grapefruit, orange, or lime!

In order to make lemon bars more WW friendly, I reduced the amount of sugar and used light butter. These bars turned out so good!! I love trying to make sweets lower in points.

How to make Lemon Bars

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Coat an 8-inch square baking dish with cooking spray.
2. To make the crust, add the 3/4 c flour, 3 Tbsp sugar, 4 tablespoons of light butter, and 1 tsp lemon zest to a food processor and pulse. Gradually add 4 tablespoons of cold water and continue pulsing the food processor until the dough starts forming.  
3. Press into bottom of prepared pan; bake until crust begins to brown, 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven; let cool. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F.
4. Meanwhile, while crust bakes, prepare the filling. Stir together 3 eggs,  3/4 c sugar, 1 Tbsp lemon zest, lemon juice, 2 Tbsp flour, and 1/8 tsp salt in a large mixing bowl.
5. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool completely before slicing into bars pieces. Serve with dusted powdered sugar on top of the lemon bars.
6. Makes 12 bars, 6 smart points per bar

Tips for Lemon Bars

Making the crust for the lemon bars can be easy if you use a food processor.  I first started to combine all the ingredients for the crust with a fork since I didn’t have a pastry cutter. I got so annoyed because it was taking forever. I ended up dumping all the ingredients in the food processor and started pulsing to combine. At first, the dough wasn’t starting to form so I added in 4 tablespoons of cold water until the crust did combine.

Use some parchment paper to help lift the bars easily out of the pan. Before you start baking and prepping the crust, place a sheet of parchment paper on top of the baking dish and leave a little parchment paper over the handles. Guys, this helps me so much whenever I try baking anything like bars, brownies, and cake.

If you don’t have fresh lemons, lemon juice concentrate is fine, but I prefer fresh lemons.

Tools used for this Recipe

8 X 8 square baking dish

Parchment Paper

Pastry Scraper

Food Processor

Healthy Lemon Bars

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• Author: Jenna
• Prep Time: 1:18
• Total Time: 1:18
• Yield: 12 1x

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Ingredients

For the Crust:

Cooking Spray

3/4 cup of flour

3 tablespoons of sugar

4 tablespoons of light butter

1 tsp of lemon zest

4 tablespoons of cold water

For the Custard:

3 eggs

3/4 cup of sugar

1 tablespoon of lemon zest

1/2 cup of fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons of flour

1/8 tsp of salt

Toppings:

2 tsp of powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

12 raspberries, strawberries, or blueberries (optional)

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Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Coat an 8-inch square baking dish with cooking spray.
2. To make the crust:  Add the 3/4 c flour, 3 Tbsp sugar, 4 tablespoons of light butter, and 1 tsp lemon zest to a food processor and pulse. Gradually add in 4 tablespoons of cold water and continue pulsing the food processor until the dough starts forming.
3. Press into bottom of prepared pan; bake until crust begins to brown, 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven; let cool. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F.
4. Meanwhile, while crust bakes, prepare the filling. Stir together 3 eggs,  3/4 c sugar, 1 Tbsp lemon zest, lemon juice, 2 Tbsp flour, and 1/8 tsp salt in a large mixing bowl.
5. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool completely before slicing into bars pieces. Serve with dusted powdered sugar on top of the lemon bars.
6. Makes 12 bars,  cut into 12 equal squares.

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Notes

myWW points: Blue Points: 6; Green Points: 7;  Purple Points: 6

• Category: Dessert
• Method: Bake
• Cuisine: American

Nutrition

• Serving Size: 1 bar
• Calories: 126
• Sugar: 14.8
• Sodium: 39.7g
• Fat: 3.3g
• Saturated Fat: 1.6g
• Carbohydrates: 22.1g
• Fiber: .4g
• Protein: 2.6g