For the past couple months I have been making my own granola to mix with my morning yogurt. I absolutely love granola, and when I was abroad last year I fell in love with the Sainsbury’s brand bags of granola. However, store-bought granola often has a lot of extra sugar and fat, so I decided I should try my hand at making my own.
My granola mix combines oats, nuts, sunflower seeds, cinnamon, coconut oil, and maple syrup. For the nuts, usually I use pecans, walnuts, sliced almonds, and pistachios, but really I just use whatever I have on hand. Since we just got back from Hawaii, I thought I’d throw in some buttery macadamia nuts (or as Christine calls them, macabadamia nuts).
Here is the actual recipe I follow:
2 cups oats, 1/3 cups chopped pecans, 1/4 cup each of chopped pistachios, slivered almonds, sunflower seeds, and chopped walnuts,
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp sea salt, 2/3 cups maple syrup, 2 Tbs coconut oil (melted)
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F
Spread the entire mixture onto a cookie sheet. I usually use parchment paper, but we were out today. Press the whole thing down into one large, flat layer. Bake for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, remove the cookie sheet and stir up the mixture. Return to the oven and bake an additional 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, remove the cookie sheet and let it cool. This allows the granola to stick together so later when you break it up you have clusters.
Here is what it looks like when it’s done:
When the granola is cool, I like to add about 1/2 cup of dried cranberries.
Just imagine this on top of a bowl of greek yogurt with fresh berries and bananas . . .