Simple Homemade Granola
Simple Homemade Granola is an easy-to-prepare breakfast cereal or mid-day snack that is much more nutritious and delicious than the packaged stuff on grocery store shelves. This lightly sweetened crunch-fest offers plenty of fiber, healthy fat, and plant protein that results in a delicious wholesome recipe to make again and again. Plus, you can use this recipe as a blueprint to make your own custom blend. Have fun in the kitchen creating varieties that you love best!
Serves: 2
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 12 minutes
Total Time: 22 minutes
Ingredients
- ½ cup almonds (raw, chopped)
- ½ cup walnuts (raw, chopped)
- ½ cup pecans (raw, chopped)
- ½ cup organic rolled oats
- ¼ cup pumpkin seeds
- ¾ tsp cinnamon
- 3 Tbsps pure maple syrup (or date paste, link in Chef’s Notes)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (preferably alcohol-free)
- ⅛ tsp salt (optional)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Coarsely chop the almonds, walnuts, and pecans into bite-size pieces and place in a large bowl.
- Grind the oats into a coarse meal in a food processor or grinder.
- Add the oats to the bowl with the nuts.
- Add the pumpkin seeds and cinnamon. Stir well.
- In a small bowl, add the maple syrup and vanilla extract. Stir.
- Pour the maple and vanilla mixture over the oat, nut, and pumpkin seed mixture.
- Mix well until the nuts and seeds are coated.
- Spread out evenly on the baking sheet and sprinkle with salt, if using.
- Bake for 12 minutes, stirring halfway through. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving (this will allow it to form clusters).
Chef's Notes
Substitutions
Use other nuts of choice in place of almonds, pecans, or walnuts. You can use all of one nut (for example, substitute all walnuts in place of the almonds or pecans) or use a different nut in place of any one of the three (for example, use hazelnuts in place of almonds).
Instead of pumpkin seeds, try sunflower seeds.
Use almond meal in place of ground oats.
Whole Food Sweetener
You could use date paste or other fruit paste in place of maple syrup. It would be helpful to thin the date paste with just enough water for it to become a syrup consistency to make mixing it with the nuts much easier. You may also need about ⅓ more date paste to reach the same sweetness as the pure maple syrup.
Storage
Once fully cool, store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 10 days or refrigerate for up to one month. Note, if you use date paste as the sweetener, only store in the refrigerator for up to one week.
From: Food Revolution Network