Flavors Tried: Cookies & Cream, Birthday Cake, Cookie Dough
Price: $29.99 for 12 ($2.50 per bar)
Nutrition: 280 Calories, 13g Fat, 26g Carbs (3g Fiber & 16g Sugar), 15g Protein
Outright bars were one of the first non-refrigerated peanut butter-based protein bars on the market. Since they hit the market, we’ve seen very similar bars pop up, such as Anabar and Authentic Bar.
I remember trying Outright bars years ago when they first launched, but with no real memory of how much I liked them, it’s time to revisit them.
My local Vitamin Shoppe had 3 flavors in stock to try for this review: cookies & cream, cookie dough, and birthday cake, all of which are peanut butter-based.
Outright also offers vegan bars, crisp bars, almond butter-based bars, and sunflower-based bars. But since I am a fan of peanut butter above all else, this seems like the right route for me to take.
Nutritionally, these bars are very similar to the other peanut butter bars out there. With nearly 300 calories per bar and more sugar than protein, they are nearly identical to Authentic Bars. Anabar gets a slight edge over these bars considering those contain around 20 grams of protein per bar.
I don’t mind a protein bar being higher in sugar (like Ready Clean Bars) if that also comes with excellent taste, so let’s see what we’ve got.
Cookies & Cream Outright Bar
Cookies & cream seems to be the most popular Outright Bar flavor, so let’s start there.
If we’re basing this review on looks alone, this bar passes with flying colors. With plenty of cookies & cream mix-ins throughout the bar, this one looks like a clear winner.
The mix-ins are a little bit deceiving, and when you bite into this bar, there aren’t nearly as many chunks as you’d hope for.
The flavor of this bar tastes almost exactly like if you took peanut butter, mixed it with cookies & cream protein powder, and formed it into a bar. I wouldn’t necessarily say it tastes like Oreo cookies, but rather an artificial cookies & cream flavoring.
I love sweets, but I found this bar to be too sweet. There are tons of high-protein jars of peanut butter out there, and if you’ve ever had a cookies & cream flavor, that’s very much what this bar tastes like.
Texturally, the bar is on the dry & crumbly side, definitely more so than the other peanut butter-based bars I’ve tried.
If you like those flavored jars of peanut butter, you’ll probably like this bar, but it’s too sweet and artificial tasting for my tastebuds (although that would be forgiven if there were generous Oreo chunks in this bar).
Cookie Dough Outright Bar
Cookie dough makes up for the lack of chunks in the cookies & cream bar, as they are evident in this one.
The cookie dough chunks are really nice, and I’m never going to complain about chocolate chips.
This bar reminds me a lot of the chocolate chip Perfect Bar, which is to say it just tastes like peanut butter, honey, and chocolate chips. Yes, there is cookie dough in this bar, but it doesn’t change the experience much.
Much like the cookies & cream flavor, I found this to be a little too much on the dry side, but not enough that it ruins the bar.
This flavor is right in line with every other peanut butter-based bar out there. It’s nothing mind-blowing, but it’s good enough if you like peanut butter.
Birthday Cake Outright Bar
The birthday cake flavor was noticeably softer than the other flavors, and the addition of soft icing inside of the bar elevated it quite a bit.
The other flavors had a slightly bitter aftertaste to them, but it was nowhere to be found in this bar.
If you were to buy a jar of birthday cake-flavored peanut butter, that is exactly what this bar smells and tastes like. It reminds me a ton of the American Dream Butter peanut butter I reviewed.
Overall, I like the flavor and texture of this one, but it’s still overly sweet for me. On the sweetness scale, I’d consider this an 8.5/10.
Outright Bar: Final Thoughts
As a peanut butter lover, I want to love these protein bars, but they just don’t quite deliver in the flavor department the same way other comparable bars do.
If I were to rank the peanut butter-based bars I’ve tried to this point, here’s how I’d rank them to this point (on flavor alone):
- G2G Bars
- Anabar
- Perfect Bar
- Authentic Bar
- Outright Bar
If you love those high-protein flavored jars of peanut butter, then you may just love these protein bars. That’s not my cup of tea, so these aren’t super high on my list, but I can see the appeal in those cases.
