Depending on where you live, delicious, crunchy granola can be hard to find and/or expensive. We like to make our own because we find it’s much tastier than the stuff we have in stores here in Germany. This is a basic recipe, you can adjust it based on your ingredient preferences. We are huge fans of coconut, so this could actually be called coconut granola! You’ll notice there are no dried fruits in the ingredient list. Although they are common in most granola recipes, I live with someone who dislikes raisins with a passion, and since he’s the one who usually makes our granola, he avoids them. By all means, throw in raisins, cranberries, or your dried fruit of choice. One last note, this recipe makes a huge batch; since you’re going through all the trouble to make our own granola, might as well make it last! But if you want to try out the recipe before making a big batch, just halve it.
Granola
Ingredients
- 3 cups of oats
- 3 cups of seeds and nuts of choice
- ½ tsp salt
- 1/3 cup coconut oil, melted
- 2/3 cup sweetener of choice (I like using maple syrup)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla sugar
- 1 1/2 cups unsweetened, raw coconut flakes
Steps
- Heat oven to 325°F (160°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Mix all of the dry ingredients together.
- Melt the coconut oil in a small saucepan (only if you live in cold climates and your coconut oil hardens!). Once melted, add the sweetener and vanilla to it.
- Pour the oil/sweetener mix into the oat mixture and stir well until combined.
- Spread out evenly and thinly onto two baking sheets, and bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Switch the position of the racks in the oven, placing the one that was below on top. Do not stir the granola. Bake for another 10 minutes.
- Watch the granola carefully now, if you want it toastier keep it in the oven a bit longer. Remove from the oven, do not stir. Let cool completely before breaking into big chunks and storing in an air-tight container.
NOTES:
- You can use any nuts you like. Always use raw nuts because you’ll be roasting them. You can chop them by hand or in a food processor if you like, but I prefer them whole because the granola is chunkier.
- For the seeds, I like sunflower or pumpkin seeds. I also like to mix in buckwheat groats. Buckwheat groats are the hulled seeds of the buckwheat plant (no relation to wheat), which are generally ground into flour and used to make soba noodles or Crêpe bretonne. Buckwheat is a complete protein, which is good news for vegetarians and vegans! This means that it has all of the essential amino acids critical for human health, something that is hard to find in a singular plant species (you can consume all amino acids by combining foods, like rice and beans). Meat contains all essential amino acids, so this note is critical for those of you who are avoiding meat.
- The most delicious granola, in my opinion, is sweetened with maple syrup, but that can be expensive, depending on where you live. Sometimes I mix things up and use honey or I mix both maple syrup and honey together.
