Recipe: How To Make Granola At Home

There are few smells as wonderful in the kitchen as a tray of granola fresh from the oven. Honey, vanilla, and cinnamon blending with oats and nuts. It is a challenge not to just wolf down the whole tray right there and then.

A few months back I dug out an old recipe book I had made back in college to find this recipe. This was a favorite of mine during my Chicago days.

I tinkered with the recipe a bit to accommodate Ellen’s desire to eliminate gluten from her diet (bye, bye wheat germ) and to fit the ingredients I had on hand. I also wanted to boost the protein percentage in the mix (hello whey protein powder) so breakfast time wouldn’t be an all-carbs affair – of course the nuts help with this too.

Things turned out well. Ellen and the girls absolutely love the stuff. Now that I’ve had a chance to make it a few times and get things tweaked and refined, I’m ready to share the recipe with the world (or at least the subset of the world who occasionally cruise by this website!)

Home Made Granola Cereal with a Protein Boost

The Andrew Seltz granola cereal recipe is easy to follow and an ideal kitchen project for young children to help with. Total prep time is about 15 minutes and the cook time is 1 hour.

Ingredients:

Oatmeal – 3 Cups
Sliced Almonds – 1/2 Cup
Chopped Pecans – 1/2 Cup
Sunflower Seeds – 1/2 Cup
Shredded Coconut – 1/2 Cup
Raisins – 1 Cup
Whey Protein Powder (vanilla or unflavored) – 1/2 Cup
Peanut Oil – 1/2 Cup
Honey – 1/2 Cup
Brown Sugar – 3 Tablespoons
Vanilla – 1 Tablespoon
Cinnamon – 1 Tablespoon

Instructions:

Pre-heat oven to 250 degrees f.

In a large mixing bowl, combine nuts, seeds, raisins, protein powder, shredded coconut, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Mix until all ingredients are well blended.

Add peanut oil, honey and vanilla. Using a wooden spoon, blend wet ingredients into dry.  To ensure even distribution of ingredients, complete the mixing by hand. Squeeze handfuls of the mixture together to force wet ingredients to spread evenly.

Spread mixture evenly onto a cookie sheet and bake for 1 hour at 250 degrees f. Stir granola every 15 minutes.

Remove the granola from the oven and allow to cool on the cookie sheet. Once the mixture has cooled completely, break it into chunks and store in an air-tight container (I use large glass jars.)

Somehow, there always seems to be one bowl-full of granola left after I get all the jars filled. So, it appears that the universe WANTS the cook to get the first bowl of every batch… who am I to argue with the universe?

Parting Thoughts

This recipe begs to be tinkered with. Swapping out various seeds, nuts, and dried fruits can give interesting variations to the flavor. Just be sure to keep the overall ratio of wet and dry ingredients consistent. Get the oil and honey out of whack and you get mushy granola that won’t crisp up or little rocks that will break your teeth.

If you come up with a cool twist, leave a comment and share what you did.