My Favorite Granola Recipe: Easy to Customize to Your Family's Taste

This is my granola recipe. It was originally based on one that appeared in the Mother Earth News magazine about 30 years ago. It has gone through a lot of changes at my house and no two batches are ever exactly the same. It is good as a cold cereal with regular or soy milk and also dry as a snack.

Over the years I have used less and less sweetener than was called for in the original. You can adjust the amount of sweetener to your taste. If your first batch is not sweet enough for you then just sweeten each bowl full as you eat it and make a note to add more sweetener to your next batch.

I usually make and bake this in a 21 quart stainless steel mixing bowl, but you can spread it out onto cookie sheets to bake if you do not have a large bowl that can go in the oven.

In an extra large bowl mix together:

10 cups old fashioned oatmeal, not instant

2-4 cups mixed nuts and nut pieces; these can be any kind of nuts you like and have on hand. Peanuts, cashews, walnuts, almonds, what have you.

Into a small saucepan measure:

½ cup vegetable oil, you want something fairly tasteless, yet good for you, canola, peanut or corn oils work for me. Olive is a little too strong for my taste at breakfast.

½ cup or more liquid sweetener, this can be honey, molasses, maple syrup or what ever you like.

Use gentle heat to slowly warm this mixture up and sprinkle in 2-3 tablespoons of finely ground spice. My favorite mix is mostly cinnamon with a little nutmeg, about 2 T. cinnamon and 1 T. nutmeg, but use whatever sounds good to you. Stir constantly until the oil and sweetener are well mixed and hot. Pour over the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl and mix thoroughly.

Bake the granola in the oven at about 250⁰ F. until golden brown. The length of time this will take will depend on whether or not you have left it all in the mixing bowl or spread in thin layers on cookies sheets. If it is in the mixing bowl or other deep container, it will take longer and you will need to stir every few minutes so it will brown evenly. If it is spread out thinly you can stir it up less often and it will be done quicker. Start out by checking it in 15 minutes, then every 10-15 min after that. In my large bowl a batch takes about 30-45 minutes to be done.

When golden brown remove from the oven and immediately stir in 2-4 cups chopped dried fruit. This can be any kind of dried fruit you like and enjoy, pineapple bits, raisins, chopped dates, apples, bananas, blueberries, cranberries, the more variety the better. The original recipe called for the fruit to be put in with the nuts, but by the time it was golden brown the raisins were like rocks, so I opted for putting them in at the end and this works well.

Allow the granola to cool completely then store in an airtight container.

I hope you have fun and enjoy this recipe. It is a great way to experiment with new tastes and new combinations of ingredients. Making your own granola is also a great way to cut down on the sugar found in the commercial product and it is easy to customize this recipe for your family. By buying the ingredients in bulk at your local co-op or health food store you can also save a lot of money over buying granola.