Make The Best Granola on the Planet. Period.
Updated just for you guys in June 2016. With my compliments. 🙂
This granola is crazy-good. I started with a recipe I found online and then I added and subtracted until it’s . . . well, just the best. It’s crunchy and chewy and a little sweet, but not too sweet. It is yummy under milk, or on top of yogurt. It’s chock-full of good, nutritious ingredients. So you can feel very clever about your kiddos and your Beloved and your friends and your relations eating it out-of-hand, if they take a mind to.
Not so with Fruit Loops or Lucky Charms, which are, basically, candy in a box. Candy for breakfast? Not at my house! So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and stir some up! Anybody lucky enough to get a bowl of this from you will be your slave for life.
And a slave for life? A very handy thing to have. 🙂
But remember the oft-quoted adage, Gentle Reader:
One more warning: once your family is spoiled to this granola, you’ll never get away with buying the boxed stuff again. (But that’s okay. Really. It is.) You are raising the proverbial granola bar, once you’ve made this granola.
Now to the recipe:
- 6 cups old fashioned oats
- 1/2 cup wheat bran
- 1/2 cup wheat germ
- 1/2 cup sesame seeds
- 3/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds (shelled) (if you have them!)
- 1 cup raw sunflower seeds (shelled, natch!)
- 1/4 cup flax seeds, crushed
- 1 cup (or more!) chopped nuts (I like them in bigger pieces.)
- 2 cups flaked coconut
- 2 cups raisins (I dote on the golden ones, but either way)
- 1 cup diced dates or dried apricots or dried apples or dried Craisins or whatever
- 1/4 cup shredded orange peel
- 1/2 cup coconut oil (or your favorite kind of oil. Olive oil is good, too.)
- 1/2 cup concentrated orange juice
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- Preheat oven to 275 degrees.
- Mix together the first eight ingredients (down to the coconut) in a very large bowl.
- Combine the oil, honey, orange juice concentrate, vanilla, brown sugar, salt in a sauce pan and heat on medium heat until all are dissolved and the solution is like a thick syrup.
- Pour the syrup on top of the bowl of dry ingredients and mix very well, until every piece is evenly coated.
- Spread the mixture evenly in two or three large jellyroll pans and bake for 40 minutes.
- Turn the oven up to 325 and bake for another 10 minutes, watching carefully as it burns very easily at this point. (My family will still eat blackened granola, but still.)
- Pull the granola out of the oven and let it cool completely. Then carefully stir the raisins and dried fruit and orange peel in. If you bake it with the raisins and dried fruit, they will puff, turn black, and become inedible little black nuggets. You’ve been warned.
- Store in freezer bags in the refrigerator or the freezer, or just share with your family immediately!
Doesn’t it sound awesome? That’s because it is. What are you waiting for? Let me know how it turns out in the Comment box below!
By the way . . . if you’re looking for a great source for coconut oil, check out Tropical Traditions. It’s my favorite place to shop for coconut oil, and if you (full disclosure time!) make a purchase from them by clicking on the cute li’l bucket below, I’ll earn a gift certificate which will make me very happy, indeed. see?—–> 🙂
Just click on this cute li’l bucket!
One more thing: Folks ask me all the time how I eat this granola. My answer (after the eyebrow-raise, sorry, just kidding) is always this: out of the bag, baby! By the handful! With milk in a bowl! Or my current favorite way, sprinkled over Greek yogurt with honey and cinnamon on top. Yum.
Yup. Now don’t you want to make some of your own?
Of course by now you, my Gentle Reader, have come up with more ways to eat this tasty granola. Share them with me in the comments, and if you share this post with your friends, I’ll give you a hundred dollars! 🙂 Okay, I’m just joking about the hundred dollars, but you will earn my undying gratitude, and that’s something . . . isn’t it?
*hugs*
13 thoughts on “Make The Best Granola on the Planet. Period.”
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Love making home made granola–just completely different than anything you can buy in the store! If people only knew. The tip about mixing in the fruit after cooking is key.
Carol, I agree. The first time I made it, I used a recipe to bake it with the dried fruit = disaster! Thanks for reading.
Looks yummy. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for reading, Robin!
I’m all about ‘crazy good’ granola! I’m going to have to try this! I love making homemade granola. Sometime you’ll have to try my sprouted granola too!!
Thanks Sister!
Anne
Anne, I’ve eaten that sprouted granola and I LOVE it. I’d love to have the recipe. I think I’d have to go out and do some shopping, first, though.
I printed the recipe and we’re going to try it here. Maybe this weekend, if the partner is willing. I’ll let you know the results when we’re done. 🙂
Thanks Amy!
Sounds delish, Amy!
Carrie, it IS delish! Let me know if you make some!
I have been privileged to consume some of this granola, and there are not enough superlatives to do it justice! And I actually prefer it almost burned. Great either way!
WOW Dad, that’s a beautifully worded comment. And the word “superlative” really raises the bar on comments here, I hope you know. I’m so glad you fixed your computer so you can make plenty of comments now! Yay!
Thank you for reminding me to make granola today! I’m actually trying a new recipe that calls for apple butter since I have a abundance of that right now. I love the idea of zest in it though. Next batch…
oooh. I’d love to try that. Do you have a recipe, Jillian?