Last Updated on 10th March 2022 by
Granola is one of only a small number of foods that I would consider among my favorites that’s also very healthy. Of course, you can make granola in a very unhealthy way, adding in tons of chocolate, sugar, and other sweet things, but I will show you a way how to make homemade granola that’s healthy and surprisingly simple.
You can make granola at home with just a few ingredients, but you can make it a lot more complex, using a huge variety of ingredients and making use of unconventional components to create a unique batch of granola to suit your taste.
I’m going to share with you a few methods for how to make granola with oats, and you can use this as a base to add to it and customize it to your preferences.
How to Make Granola
Ingredients:
- 3 cups of old-fashioned rolled oats
- 1 cup of sliced almonds
- 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
- 1 cup of raisins
- 1/2 cup of coconut oil (or olive or canola oil)
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1/2 cup of honey (maple syrup can be used as well)
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Prepare a baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper.
- Mix together honey, cinnamon, oil, and salt.
- Then, add in the almonds and oats and stir. Keep in mind that your proportions don’t have to be exact for this recipe.
- Spread out your oat mixture onto the baking sheet in an even layer. If you see clumps in your granola, you can press it down with a spatula.
- Bake your granola for 20 minutes, giving it a stir about halfway through the baking time. You’ll know it’s ready to come out of the oven when it’s a golden brown color and your almonds look well toasted. It may still be wet when you take it out of the oven, but it will dry as you allow it to cool.
- Add in the fruit to the finished granola and stir.
How to Make Granola Crunchy
If you need granola before and it came out soft rather than crunchy, you may be wondering where you made a mistake. The most common reason why people will end up with overly soft granola is that they use cooking temperatures that are too high.
Keeping the temperature to 300 degrees Fahrenheit or so ensures that cooks all the way through before it dries. If you’re setting the temperature too high, you can cause it to cook too quickly and won’t give it time to dry properly.
How to Make Granola Bars
Granola bars make for superb snacks that are not as messy as loose granola. I just love packing these into the kids’ lunch bags, and they love how sweet and tasty they are.
Making granola bars isn’t as simple as just forming the granola from the recipe above into bar shapes. You need some sort of binder, and the most common one is peanut butter.
You’ll use whole rolled oats for this recipe, and there’s no need to bake the granola bars. I like to add chocolate chips or butterscotch chips to the recipe to sweeten them, as these are generally considered a dessert food.
How to make healthy granola bars? You can switch out the chocolate chips for raisins or dates.
How to make chewy granola bars and ensure that they don’t come out crunchy? Simply don’t bake them. If you want crunchy ones, you’ll bake them about the same way you would regular granola, but for chewy granola bars, just chill them instead. They’ll be perfectly edible without baking.
How to make granola bars with premade granola? You can take a premade granola mix or homemade granola and turn it into granola bars. It’s okay if it’s already cooked. Just add peanut butter to the mix and form your granola into granola bars.
It won’t be the same as if you followed the method I gave you above that doesn’t call for baking and that just chills the bars, but it’s a pretty good alternative.
How to Store Homemade Granola
There’s nothing complicated about storing your homemade granola. You can put it in an airtight container and keep it in the fridge or at room temperature. Either method you use will let you store them for about two weeks. If you want them to last longer, store the granola in the freezer, where it can store for up to six months.
How to Make Keto Granola
What changes do you need to make to granola if you want it to be keto friendly? You will be leaving out the honey and oats and instead using nuts and seeds.
Try mixing together pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, hazelnuts, and almonds. Combine them with flaxseed meal as a replacement for oats, and then egg white and butter to help hold the granola together and add some flavor to it.
To sweeten the granola, try using a sugar substitute, like erythritol.
How to Make Clusters in Granola
If you want to make your granola into chunky clusters rather than smaller pieces or granola bars, you will need to change up the process a little bit. How do you make granola clusters from your granola? Mix everything together except your honey or maple syrup, following the recipe I gave you at the beginning.
Form everything together into one mass and pour maple syrup over top. Then, bake the granola at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes. You don’t need to stir partway through. Once everything is done baking, you can take it out of the oven, let it cool, and then break it up into clusters.
Try changing up your granola in interesting ways to make it more to your taste. You can add coconut flakes, cranberries, peanuts, agave syrup, and dried fruits of all kinds.
I like to add dried bananas and blueberries, as well as a variety of different colored raisins. You can even add dried apple pieces or mango to the granola for something that tastes a little more exotic.
Granola can be served as a dry snack or in a bowl with milk like cereal.
I'm Pauline, a mother of four grown children, my passion for cooking stemmed from the joy i get cooking for my family. I love to try new dishes, especially when dining out but creating and sharing my own recipes is my favourite thing to do!
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