Healthy Homemade Granola

After years of baking boatloads of healthy homemade granola for my family, friends and clients, I am finally posting my recipe. Now everyone can enjoy baking their own. It's just a little sweet and whole lot of crunchy. My clients say it's the best!

Homemade granola has become a staple for many pantries. Sprinkle it into yogurt, eat a handful as a snack, or create beautiful yogurt-berry breakfast parfaits. Making your own is so easy. And the house smells incredible while it is baking thanks to the maple syrup and cinnamon.

Jump to:

• Recipe Ingredients
• Substitutions
• Oats and a Gluten-free Diet
• Homemade Granola: Maple and Coconut Oil
• Coconut Allergy?
• How to Make Homemade Granola
• Tips on Dried Fruit: Lower Sugar or None
• What About Sulfites in Dried Fruit?
• Homemade Granola: A Gift From the Kitchen
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

Recipe Ingredients

See the recipe card for measurements.

• Rolled oats: If you follow a gluten-free diet, be sure to purchase gluten-free oats. Oats can be contaminated with gluten during growing (crop rotation), processing, packaging, or shipping. Get the standard form, not the extra thick or quick cooking.
• Coconut: Buy the unsweetened shredded coconut, not the sticky, sugary sweetened stuff.
• Nuts: You'll need chopped walnuts and blanched slivered almonds. They provide, nice crunch, protein, flavor, and healthy fat.
• Sunflower seeds: By raw not roasted or flavored.
• Flax seed: I keep whole flaxseed in my pantry and grind them fresh. You can buy pre-ground if preferred. Whole seeds keep longer than ground. Use an inexpensive coffee/spice grinder like this.
• Hemp seed: Buy whole, raw seeds.
• Maple syrup: Buy the real stuff, not the fake, brown stuff made with corn syrup. Note for lower sugar below.
• Fat: Coconut oil provides healthy fat and great flavor.
• Vanilla:
• Spices:

Substitutions

• Swap pecans for walnuts.
• Swap sliced almonds for the slivered blanched.
• To reduce sugar, use this maple keto syrup made with monk fruit. It tastes great.
• Swap avocado oil for coconut oil. If you've never used avocado oil, the flavor is very light and your granola won't taste like avocado. ANother op
• Use coconut MCT oil instead of the extra virgin coconut oil.

Oats and a Gluten-free Diet

Oats are often included on the list of grains to be avoided for those following a gluten-free diet making it confusing. While the do not contain gluten, they do contain a gluten-like protein called avenin which some people with gluten-sensitivity are also sensitive to. Only you know your sensitivity level.

Homemade Granola: Maple and Coconut Oil

I use real maple syrup and unrefined extra virgin coconut oil as the binders for my granola. The difference? Real maple syrup comes from trees. The fake stuff comes from a factory. Nothing but artificial flavor and colored corn syrup. Read the labels. The real stuff is more expensive, but better tasting and better for you.

Many recipes use vegetables oil. Ick. If you have it in your pantry, throw it out; it is not from vegetables. Most are nothing more than highly processed, genetically modified soy bean oils and they are horrible for you.

Coconut Allergy?

If you are allergic to coconut, try a neutral flavored, naturally refined avocado oil like this one. Skip seed oils or poor quality oils like canola. That's another post I must write. Also skip the shredded coconut in the dry mix.

How to Make Homemade Granola

Whisk together the maple syrup and coconut oil with vanilla (or almond) extract, and your spices of choice – cinnamon, nutmeg, Chinese Five Spice or other warm spice blends. Have fun varying them to your liking.

In a medium bowl, measure out the dry ingredients. A kitchen scale makes it easier. The nuts and seeds are good sources of healthy fat.

Pour the syrup mix into the dry mix and stir until the oats feel uniformly heavy. Stir really well! There should be no white or dry areas left. Pour onto a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 2 hours, turning the maple granola over half of the way through. I use my hands and a metal spatula.

Cool granola after baking, then mix in dried fruit if desired. See tips on choosing dried fruit below, or skip it to reduce sugar. It's delicious either way.

Tips on Dried Fruit: Lower Sugar or None

Either with or without dried fruit, this granola is great. For reduced sugar overall, skip it or reduce the ¾ cup further. When buying dried fruit, be sure to read labels for added sugar and sulfites.

The above photo shows (at the top, clockwise)

• bright red dried goji berries
• sweet and tangy golden berries
• apple juice sweetened dried cranberries
• dried white mulberries
• dried currants
• dried blueberries
• golden raisins
• sulfite-free dried apricots (center)
• Pitted dates are another option.

Golden berries and dried white mulberries are lower sugar options and they taste terrific. Golden berries have only 2 grams of sugar per ¼ cup versus 25 grams for dried cranberries.

What About Sulfites in Dried Fruit?

If you have asthma or sulfite sensitivity, read labels and choose dried fruit without sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide is used as a preservative in many dried fruits. It also keeps many dried fruits (like dried apricots) a pretty color. Sulfite-free dried apricots are usually brown. Not as nice looking, but sulfite-free.

Homemade Granola: A Gift From the Kitchen

Homemade maple granola makes a welcome gift when visiting family and friends over the holidays. Tied up in little bags with a bow, granola is a terrific hostess gift. For a fun version of granola try my chocolate chip granola bites.

📖 Recipe