One of my goals for the New Year is healthier eating. I want to be more conscious about the things I put into my body and find ways to get my nutrients through food versus supplements.
We are also working on eliminating dyes and highly processed foods. This has resulted in intense label reading and being more intentional about cooking our favorite items from scratch.
You don’t realize just what’s in your food until you start reading labels. The granola we were previously buying was labeled as “Natural Flavored,” and the 2nd ingredient was cane sugar followed by canola oil. Yuck!
Homemade granola is so versatile, easy to customize, and quick to make! Our favorite way to eat it is to add it to our homemade yogurt with some honey. Or pour some milk over it and you’ve got homemade cereal.
Granola is essentially a base of rolled oats, with your favorite nuts and dried fruits added, and then that mixture gets coated in a wet mixture that consists of a fat and a sweetener.
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INGREDIENTS
- 3 cups of rolled oats (we used an organic kind, but any kind would work!)
- 2 cups of nuts* / seeds (I used about ⅓ c. each of pecans, walnuts, pepitas, sliced almonds, and 2 tbsp. each of chia and flax seeds)
- 1 cup of dried fruit (cranberries, bananas, mangos, prunes, raisins, dates, or apples)
- 1/3 cup of fat (butter, canola, coconut, or sunflower oil)
- 1/2 cup of sweetener (agave, honey, or brown sugar**)
- Optional add-ins: vanilla, chocolate chips, or spices (like cinnamon or cloves)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to 325°
- To a large measuring bowl, I added all of my dry ingredients (besides dried fruit) and mixed to combine
- In a LARGE cast iron skillet, melt your fat and your sweetener. In the video, I added dry ingredients to my wet. However, I now would recommend reversing this. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients slowly to coat. If they seem a little dry, make a little more wet mixture to add. I added a splash of homemade vanilla before baking, but that’s optional!
- Add everything back to your cast iron skillet and put it into the oven at 325° for 30ish minutes until cooked to your desired liking. Every 10 minutes or so, I gave it a good stir to make sure everything cooked evenly.
- Once done, remove from oven and add in your dried fruit (we did cranberries) and chocolate chips if you’re adding them.
- Allow to cool in the skillet if you want more cluster-like granola, if you don’t, keep stirring through it every couple of minutes to break it up until it’s dry.
- Store in an air-tight container for around a month. If you have extra, you can freeze it.
NOTES
* These are just the nut options that I used. Get creative! You could add sunflower seeds, peanuts, macadamia, cashews, or hemp seeds.
** If you are using brown sugar to sweeten, I would add to your dry ingredients and then add the fat into your dry mixture.
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