Homemade granola not only makes a great breakfast, but also a good-for-you snack. It takes just minutes, but is way better for you than store bough since you get to control all the ingredients.
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We eat homemade granola for breakfast almost every day at our house. My daughter also loves it for a snack, since this recipe creates nice clusters – and I love knowing exactly what the ingredients are in that snack. Store bought granola gets a bad rap because of the sugar, but you can make it with less, plus it’s a lot less expensive as well.
Years ago when I first started making granola, the only recipes I could find for called for baking it at a low temperature for 2 hours! And stirring it 2-3 times, so you had to babysit it. Ugh – I made it only once because I didn’t want my oven on for that long, and it just took too much time.
Then I found a recipe in one of the Tightwad Gazette books that only needed 20 minutes of baking, yay! Seems granola doesn’t need to be cooked that long after all. Over the years I adapted it to our tastes and to make it healthier and it became one of our favorites. (Update: I use this easy maple-honey homemade granola recipe now, since it uses even less sweetener and cooks in even less time.)
Make Homemade Granola
This is a really flexible recipe. Don’t have nuts? Leave them out. Want to use up a half-eaten bag of dried apricots? Cut them up and throw them in. Or any other dried fruit – you get the idea.
Sometimes I use all rolled oats and sometimes I use a 5-grain rolled mix. Just keep the total amount of dry ingredients to 10 cups (of which 8 cups should be rolled grains).
I noticed when looking at boxed granola that there was always flour listed, and I wanted to create more “chunks” like they have in the commercial cereals, so I added a bit one time and it did create more chunks. Any type of flour works, since it’s being used to add to the “clumpiness” factor, but it’s also totally optional.
Shop this recipe:
- The 5-Grain Rolled Cereal Mix I use.
- The brand of rolled oats I prefer.
- I like to use this oil for its neutral flavor.
- To make it extra healthy, I add Flax Seed (for fiber) and Ground Flax (for heart health), and Oat Bran.
Tip: when adding the sweeteners and oil to the saucepan, add the brown sugar first, the oil second, and then add the honey. Measuring in this order will help the honey to simply slide out of the measuring cup!
You can let the mixture cook while mixing your dry ingredients, stirring every now and then. When the sugar melts remove it from the heat before adding vanilla because it will boil up a little – just stir it down.
After you’ve poured the hot mixture over the dry ingredients, start mixing it together with a large spoon, but don’t get discouraged! It will seem like it can’t possibly cover all the dry ingredients, but just keep mixing, using the spoon to get all the edges and smooshing with the back of the spoon, and it will eventually be evenly coated. And it really only takes a few minutes, I swear!
Now, I’ve read that some people recommend using your hands to mix the granola and I actually tried this, which makes me want to mention two things:
- The sugar mixture is HOT.
- It’s really very sticky. Very sticky.
So I use my large stainless steel spoon.
Like I said, you bake this granola for only 20 minutes – much better than 2 hours, don’t you think?
I’ve found that if you cool it for about 20 minutes without stirring there will be more of the chunks that my family likes. If you don’t want larger pieces, stir it more often while it’s cooling.
In either case, you will have to stir from the outside after 20 minutes or it will stick to the pan. If it ever does stick badly (like if you’ve forgotten about it because you’re outside in the garden…not that I’ve ever done that), put it back in a warm oven for a few minutes, and it should come up without a problem.
You can stir in any dried fruit you’d like either right when you take it out of the oven or after letting it sit for awhile.
Click the arrow for the full homemade granola recipe (with print options)!
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Shannon says
August 24 at 11:31 amWhat’s the purpose of the flax/germ/bran? Just curious as I don’t have any in the pantry. Also, if I add chia seeds should I add them with the fruit to prevent over heating in the oven?
Jami says
August 26 at 12:10 pmNo other purpose than to add more of their unique qualities (omega-3s, fiber, nutrients, etc.). Leave them out and fill in with more oats or add other things, like your chia seeds. I’m not sure about heating the seeds, Shannon. I just add chia to the top of the granola when I eat it, just to be on the safe side. I think adding it later, they would just all fall to the bottom of whatever container you stored the granola in.
Katie says
October 8 at 10:11 amDoes yours come out really crunchy? I tried this recipe and it was kind of chewy-crunchy. I even popped it in the oven later on for an additional 20 minutes and got no difference. I wonder if it’s because there’s no water in it?
Jami says
October 8 at 4:37 pmThe thinner you make the granola, the crunchier it will be – so if you spread it out on a large cookie sheet instead of a cake pan it will be crunchy if you cook it long enough. I think putting it in later rather than cooking longer was the issue – whenever I’ve tried that with other recipes, it doesn’t seem to work very well. In our house we have to have both some crunchy and chewy parts to satisfy all the differing taste preferences. 😉
Jen says
June 8 at 11:33 pmI just made this and it is DELICIOUS! thanks for posting!
Alisa says
May 18 at 8:00 pmI know this is a silly question, just wondering what the sugar content is (I’m diabetic). Just stumbled upon your site and love what I see so far! Cant wait to make the granola bars!
Jami @ An Oregon Cottage says
May 19 at 12:37 amWell, it’s 1-1/2 c. sugar (honey and br. sugar combined) to 10 c. of dry ingredients, so there’s about 1-1/4 TABLESPOONS of sweet/sugar in every 1 cup of granola (not counting any added fruit), and a serving is 1/4 to 1/3 cup. SO about 1-1/2 TEASPOONS of sugar in a serving.
I have no idea if this is too much or not. 🙂 I think you could easily cut the sugar to just a cup total – there won’t be as many chunks, ’cause it won’t stick together as much, but will still be tasty (sometimes I’ve made it with less when we were out of honey!).
Tami says
March 8 at 12:55 amJust made a batch! Thanks so much for the recipe it is YUM!!
Mirawyn says
January 10 at 10:53 pmJust made this last night! Thanks for posting all these recipes for staple items!
Jennifer says
July 9 at 5:41 amThanks for this recipe. I was looking for an easier granola recipe than the one I had. This fits the bill, super easy and very tasty! Thumbs up from my husband too who is very picky about his granola. It looks like I bought a box from the store and dumped it in the pan!