Granola Recipe Anyone?

Right now I buy it from a deli and it is good, but sometimes they are out, or are closed for several days, so I would like to make my own. Anyone have a winner recipe?

PCC, I'm not normally into Granola. But I know how it is when you need something and have to generate it on your own from time to time. I found this after doing some searching and I found it quite informational on a number of different levels. Hope this helps (and it is a long post):

Most super-sweet, supermarket granolas are cavity-activating and loaded with a lot of the worst kind of fat, such as coconut and palm oil. They are also expensive.

Granola is so easy to make at home, it doesn't even fall into the category of cooking. Since a little effort goes a long way, solo cooks with limited time and experience might want give it a go. If you need granola lessons, read on.

First, try it as a bowl of cereal with milk, orange juice or sweetened coffee poured over. Add sliced fresh fruit if you like. Granola also has multiple roles as a topping. A dish of cottage cheese or a carton of fruit yogurt topped with a half cup of granola makes a light but filling dinner or power breakfast or desk lunch. Granola is good sprinkled on applesauce or ice cream. I've even put a sprinkling over a baked sweet potato. And, except for the few inevitable crumbs that could really bollix up a computer keyboard, it's easy to eat out of hand. The downside: It's calorie-rich and hard to stop eating.

The granola-making drill goes like this. Buy rolled oats -- you know, oatmeal -- but not quick-cooking or instant. Dump the dry oats in a bowl with other cereal-friendly ingredients. Toss with a fat and a sweetener and bake until golden and clumpy.

There are lots of cook's-choice options. Shredded or flaked coconut is always good, unsweetened preferred. Various seeds and nuts are good partners, too.

The fat in granola recipes is there to coat the oatmeal and make it crisp as the cereal bakes, just the way fat is tossed on bread cubes when making croutons to make them crisp and toasty. Many recipes call for melted butter or margarine. I use light olive oil instead. It does the coating job just as well, is better nutritionally and has no lactose, an ongoing no-no for me.

Honey is the usual sweetener. I warm the honey in the microwave to make it pourable and then stir it into the oil. This method allows you to combine the liquids and drizzle the mixture over the dry cereal ingredients and get them well-coated.

Most recipes call for raisins or some sort of chewy dried fruit. I've used dried cranberries, currants, chopped dates or a handful of mixed dried fruit. Here's a word of warning. Do NOT add them to the cereal mixture before baking or they will further dehydrate and get so hard you could bite down and crack a filling. Spare me embarrassment, and don't ask how I know this. Point is, stir in the dried fruit when you remove the granola from the oven.

Same thing goes for wheat germ, which adds a good dose of nutrition. The tiny, thin flakes can over-toast or even burn if not closely watched. Stir it in after the granola has baked. Most recipes don't tell you to do this.

Chopped nuts add flavor and crunch. Almonds are most often included, but if you like pecans or walnuts and have them in the pantry, use them. Some recipes call for sunflower or pumpkin seeds. I find them both sharp on the gullet and nearly indigestible.

Cinnamon is a natural partner, and most recipes call for it. Sneak in a titch of nutmeg -- about a quarter of a teaspoon -- for a rather exotic taste. Salt is usually not called for, but I always add a pinch to bring out the flavor in the other ingredients and also because by using olive oil as my fat of choice, there's a loss of the salt component usually found in butters and margarines.

Pan size will affect the baking time. Most granolas are baked in a 9-by-3-inch baking pan. But if the cereal is dumped onto a cookie sheet, it will bake and brown faster. Color and type of metal also affect the baking time. It's best to turn on the oven light and keep a watchful eye on the baking. When you begin to smell it, the cereal is about done.

Not to fret if the recipes make big quantities. You'll end up putting some in Baggies and giving it away. In any case, granola keeps for a long time stored in a jar with a screwtop lid and even longer, I think, in the fridge. I usually eat it so fast, I've never put that to the test.
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Baked Honey Granola

2 cups rolled oats, uncooked
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch salt
1/3 cup slivered almonds, chopped
1/4 cup honey, warmed to liquid
1/4 cup light olive oil (or 4 tablespoons butter, melted)
1/2 cup golden raisins or other dried fruit

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, combine oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt and almonds. In a glass measure, warm honey until it is no longer viscous. Add olive oil (or melted butter) to the honey and stir.

Drizzle the honey-oil over the dry ingredients and mix to combine. Spread the mixture on a baking sheet or in a 9-by-3-inch pan.

Bake granola until golden and crunchy, stirring once, anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes. It will depend on your pan. Stir in the raisins. Makes about 3 cups.
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Big Batch Granola

1 box (6 cups) rolled oats
1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup wheat germ
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup honey (or honey mixed with maple syrup)
1/3 cup oil, any kind
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup dried fruit, optional

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Combine the first 5 ingredients. Warm the honey, add the oil and vanilla. Drizzle the honey-oil over the dry ingredients and toss to coat. Spread the mixture onto 2 cookie sheets. Bake about 30 minutes until golden, stirring every 10 minutes.

When done, remove from oven and stir in dried fruit if used. As the granola cools, it will lose its stickiness and become crunchy. Makes about 9 cups.
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Adele Davis' Grandaddy of Granolas

5 cups rolled oats
1 cup each of chopped almonds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, shredded coconut, soy flour, powdered milk (preferably non-instant), and wheat germ.
1 cup warmed honey
1 cup oil, any kind

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Combine dry ingredients. Combine honey and oil and drizzle over the dry ingredients tossing and coating. Spread the mixture on 2 cookie sheets and bake for 30 to 45 minutes until golden. Makes up to 12 cups, depending what you add or leave out.

Rex, thank you so much, not only for the recipes, but for all those tips. Especially about the fruit being added later. The granola I buy has raisins that are as hard as a rock. Now I know how to avoid that.

PCC, I sure am glad I could help. I get so many recipes here and I like it when I can help. It's nice to be able when you are stuck in the kitchen to be able to turn around to your computer and post here and get an answer back....it's like having a group of people sitting in your office

Thanks for the recipe Rex! Now I know what to do with the big bag of wheatgerm in my fridge.

The recipes sound fab because commercial granola is really sweet to the point where, in the case of some brands, you feel like your teeth are disintegrating!

The European version of granola is muesli which is a mix of oats, seeds, nuts, grains and dried fruit without the oil and honey. Probably contains less calories but can be a little hard to eat for people who need a bit of sweetness. The commercial versions add copious amounts of milk powder to the mix which is blech!! Homemade is good though a little more expensive to assemble because of having to buy all the different ingredients.

Me? I'm off to make my first batch of granola. Maybe cut down a teensy bit on the honey but 3/4 honey is all that bad for 12 cups of granola!!!

I was also going to say:

Granola may be calorie rich but looking at the list of ingredients that go into it, homemade granola is extraordinarily rich in nutrients too. I mean, nutritionists recommend we eat seeds and nuts for essential oils, oatmeal is good for soluble fibre, honey is the only other natural sweetener apart from the fructose we get from fruit, the dried fruit provides fructose (dried bananas would provide potassium), olive oil is healthy, if you use nuts, brazils are a rich source of selenium etc etc.

It's when you buy and eat the commercial versions that you're so in trouble when it comes to the amount of sugar they whack into the mix!

Super Simple Granola.

Here's the recipe I use - we eat this every morning. I use Maple syrup - less sugars, more flavor. I also like to use Quaker Multigrain Hot Cereal - you get more of a variety of grains than just oatmeal - same with the nuts. This recipe is less sweet than ones made with honey.

I've found peanut oil give a nice nutty flavor - but canola or anything will work. I chop the nuts in my blender, just put in 1/2 or so and pulse it until they look about the size you want.

Preheat the over to 300
1 box rolled oats or Quaker Multigrain Hot Cereal ( rolled oats, wheat, rye, barley)
1 can Planters unsalted mixed nuts, chopped
1/2 c coconut - unsweentend is best - but sweetened is fine
1/2 c peanut oil
1/2 real maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla.

Dump everything in a BIG bowl. Stir with a mixing spoon until the oil and syrup are mixed well.

Spray a large baking sheet with non stick cooking spray and spread the granola on the sheet.

Cook for an hour at 300 - if you like it more toasted cook it another 15 minutes or so.

Pull out of the oven and let cool in the sheet for 15 minutes. Spread a newspaper on your table and dump the granola onto the paper to coll completely. Make sure it's completely cooled before you store it so that it will stay crunchy.

I make this every week - it takes fifteen minutes to mix up.

We eat it for breakfast with milk, fresh fruit, raisin, chopped dates - whatever is around the kitchen. It's also fun for a chage to use in oatmeal cookie recipes - since the grains are toasted it makes them real crunchy.

Here's my favorite granola:

GRANOLA or GRANOLA BARS

1 cup honey
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup nonfat dry milk
4 cups rolled oats
2 cups chopped nuts
1 cup seeds
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup chopped dried fruit

For granola, position two oven-racks at second-highest and second-lowest levels in oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Microwave honey and vegetable oil until warm. Stir in dry milk until dissolved. Stir in oats, nuts, seeds, coconut, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves until well coated. Spread onto two 15” x 18” cookie sheets lined with non-stick silicone baking mats. Bake for 30 minutes, or until golden-brown, stirring granola and switching positions of cookie sheets halfway through baking. Remove from oven. For chunky granola, press flat with spatula. Cool to room temperature. Granola turns crisp upon cooling. Break into chunks. Mix in dried fruit. Store refrigerated in airtight container to keep crisp.

For crunchy and chewy granola bars, position oven-rack at third-highest level in oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9" x 13" rectangular pan. Mix together all ingredients as for granola, but include dried fruit. With damp spatula, press firmly into pan. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven. Cool in pan for 20 minutes. Remove from pan while warm. Cool to room temperature. Cut into bars, using serrated knife and light sawing motion. Makes 32 bars, 200 calories each.

Those sound really good. The only granola recipe I have is for a Kosher for Passover Matzoh granola- it is really more of a snack than a breakfast because matzo gets very soft very fast when it gets wet, but it is a decent snack during those 8 days of dietary distress. And Rex is right- you always add the dried fruit AFTER the baking.

So for all you fellow members of the Tribe, here goes:

Mix 3 cups Matzoh Farfel with 1/2 cup oil, 1/2 cup honey, 1 cup shredded sweetened cocount and i/2 cup chopped nuts. spread onto a baking sheet and bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or so, turning every 4-5 minutes- when it is toasty brown remove from oven, place in container, allow to cool and add your favorite dried fruit- I usually add chopped dates.