One of my favorite things to have around the house for snacking, an impromptu meal, or just as a garnish for another dish is granola. It also goes perfectly with yogurt (find out how to make yogurt here). Granola is basically a cold cereal made out of rolled oats and nuts and sometimes puffed rice baked with a sweetener like honey or syrup. It’s incredibly versatile and you can throw in all kinds of stuff, like dried fruit, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, coconut flakes – you name it – to really make it your own.
Granola was technically invented in 1863 by a doctor in Dansville, New York at the Jackson Sanitarium – a sort of old-timey health spa in upstate New York. It was initially called “granula” and marketed as a healthy breakfast cereal. A competing mixture was created by a man named John Harvey Kellogg, who changed the name slightly to “granola” to avoid copyright infringement, and it was off from there.
Granola sort of putt putted along until the hippie movement of the 60s when it was re-popularized as a health food by adding in a bunch of fruits and nuts. By the early 70s, large food manufacturers had jumped on board and granola based cereals and breakfast items were basically a household name.
How to Make Granola
Making granola is a pretty simple process, and once you have the basics down you can experiment with different types of ingredients and liquid sweeteners to make all types of granola. But the basic formula always stays the same: 6 cups of dry ingredients + 1 cup of wet ingredients + baking = granola.
Here’s one of our favorite recipes. You can use this as a starting point and then add your favorite type of fruit and nut to make it your own.
- 2 cups of rolled oats
- 1/2 cup of quinoa (red, black or white)
- 1/2 cup of millet
- 1/2 cup of unsalted pecan halves
- 1/2 cup of unsalted cashews
- 1/2 cup of shaved, unsweetened coconut
- 1/2 tsp of salt
- 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
- 1 cup of raisins
- 1 cup of chopped dried apricots
- 1/2 cup of honey
- 1/2 cup of sunflower oil
- 1 egg white
- 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
- Preheat the oven to 300F.
- In a medium bowl, mix all the oats, quinoa, millet, nuts, coconut, salt and cinnamon together until well combined.
- In a small bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients until they are well combined.
- Slowly drizzle the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients while stirring. Mix the ingredients until all the dry ingredients are fully and evenly coated.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Pour the granola onto the tray spreading it out as much as possible.
- Bake the granola for 45 minutes to an hour or until the granola is golden brown. To break up the granola into smaller pieces, stir every 10-15 minutes during baking.
- Remove the granola from the oven and let cool completely.
- Stir in the dried fruit.
- Store in a airtight container.
- Any grains nuts and dried fruit can be used, just stick to the ratio of about 6-6-1/2 cups total dry ingredients:1cup wet ingredients. The dried fruit should be added after baking as should any chocolate.
- Other syrup sweeteners can be used like agave or brown rice syrup.
- Other vegetable oils can be used, even olive oil. Consider exploring flavored oils to add to the granola.
