The World's Best Granola Recipe

Bake Your Own Granola - It’s Fast, Easy, and Healthy

Feb 14, 2009 Jeff Chan

High in fibre, nutrients, and energy, yet low in fat, granola is one of the best foods out there. It's also quick, easy, and inexpensive to make at home.

Diet specialists often emphasize the importance of obtaining nutrients from a variety of sources rather than eating the same thing day after day. The great thing about granola is that it’s a diverse mix to begin with - grains, seeds, nuts, dried fruit, etc. A bowl of granola with milk (or rice milk or soy milk) is a great source of protein and is high-energy, low-fat, and packed with a diverse array of vitamins and nutrients.

Granola is Easy, Fast, and Inexpensive to Make

Granola is easy to find at almost every grocery store, but many of the brands, particularly the less common flavours, tend to be expensive. The advantage of baking granola at home is that one can put all of their favourite ingredients into the recipe without paying the high prices of the specialty brands. It’s also fast and easy - spend 15 minutes mixing everything together, throw it in the oven, and come back 50 minutes later to a finished batch.

The World's Best Granola Recipe

The following recipe is the result of dozens of batches of adding, removing, altering, and substituting ingredients. Feel free to change anything to suit your tastes.

• 8-12 cups of quick oats
• 2 cups wheat germ
• 2 cups oat bran
• 2/3 cup flax seeds
• 2/3 cup hemp seeds
• 2 cups chopped almonds
• 100g dried apples
• 1 cup honey
• 1/3 cup sunflower oil
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Dump all the ingredients into a large bowl.
2. Mix well (Hint: Warming up the honey will make mixing everything together a bit easier. Using an electric mixer will make it much easier).
3. Spread evenly on two large (about 11" x 17") trays.
4. Bake at 275°F for about 50 minutes. (Important note: some of the beneficial fatty acids in hemp seeds and flax seeds are destroyed by temperatures above 350°F)

Additional Ingredients:

The best thing about making granola is that the recipe can be changed depending on everyone’s personal tastes, any allergies they may have, and what happens to be in the cupboard at the time. Adding different ingredients will change the flavour and nutrient content, so get busy and start experimenting. A few ideas:

• sunflower seeds
• dates
• raisins
• dried cranberries
• walnuts
• etc.

Alternative Sweeteners:

Some people who don’t like honey will mix the dry ingredients, spread the mixture onto the trays, fill the trays with a fruit juice of their choice, and bake the granola at a lower temperature until the water evaporates. This method requires much more baking time but can yield interesting results.

The copyright of the article The World's Best Granola Recipe in Recipes is owned by Jeff Chan. Permission to republish The World's Best Granola Recipe in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Jeff's Favourite Granola

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Comments

Mar 15, 2009 5:00 PM

Guest :

Looks good ! But what if i need just 4 in stead of a dozen ?
(im a BAD cook)

Mar 16, 2009 11:20 AM

Jeff Chan :

Four instead of a dozen? Well if you only want a third of the recipe, then just divide the quantity of each ingredient by three. The baking time will be the same.

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