Recipe: Lemon No Bake Cheesecake Bars

Some days you’d kill for a piece of cheesecake. But, as anyone who’s into healthy living knows, cheesecake can be dangerous. So my brain went a’stormin’ and thinking about how I could get a dessert I could enjoy on a cheesecake level without freaking out about it showing up on the scale the next day. Turns out for me that was easier done than said!

The recipe is really simple and not at all expensive to make. All you need is a pint of cottage cheese (I prefer no salt added), lemons, a packet of unflavored gelatin, sucralose and graham crackers.

Zest the lemons and juice them. You’ll need 1/4 cup of juice and about a tablespoon of zest. Pour the juice into a small bowl and sprinkle in the gelatin. Whisk with a fork then microwave for 2 minutes. This will bloom the gelatin.

Add in the sucralose and cottage cheese and blend thoroughly with a hand mixer. If you prefer a smoother texture, feel free to mix this in a blender.

Layer the graham crackers on the bottom of your loaf pan. Top with half of the cottage cheese mixture, repeat, then finish with the remaining graham crackers. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. It will sliced pretty well the next day and be firm enough to eat with the fingers.

Lemon No Bake Cheesecake Bars

• Servings: 4
• Time: 15min
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

A slightly sweet, protein rich dessert that evokes all the feelings of cheesecake.

NUTRITION PER SERVING: 252 cals, 5.3g fat, 214mg sodium, 38.6g carbs, 18.6g protein.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp lemon zest
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 packet unflavored gelatin
– 1/2 cup sucralose
• 1 pint no salt added 1% milk fat cottage cheese
• 10 sheets of graham crackers

Directions

1. In a small bowl, combine lemon juice and gelatin and whisk with a fork. Microwave for 2 minutes to bloom the gelatin. Add the sucralose, lemon zest and cottage cheese and combine thoroughly.
2. Line the bottom of a loaf pan with a layer of graham crackers, then top with half the cottage cheese. Add more graham crackers, then the remainder of the cottage cheese, and finish with the remaining graham crackers.
3. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Slice into portions and serve.