HEALTHY HOMEMADE GRANOLA

When you know a thing or two about nutrition (high glycemic foods, added sugar, etc), you are often deprived of certain foods. For me, granola was one of them. Even though I love granola, I am really trying hard to stay away from natural and unnatural sugars. And, in most supermarkets, the healthiest granola they sell you has either maple sugar or honey. Which is OK, but I am trying to cut down on excess added sugars. It is a choice of mine, don’t go crazy if you don’t want too. But if I can avoid those extra calories and still get the sweet taste, I´ll rather take that!

So for the first time, I decided to make my own homemade granola recipe. I looked at many different ones, but I then decided to give it my own twist. To tell you the truth, it is the first time I baked something without following a specific recipe. And I feel like to make granola, you do not need to measure how much almond vs oats you use. Because it depends on your own preferences. I wanted more oats than nuts because even though nuts are a good source of fat, they have a higher calorie count. For the toppings it is the same; I added unsweetened dried coconut. But I didn’t add a lot because I do not like it in big quantities.

My tips for making healthy, sugar-free granola is to not use any sweetener at all. That doesn’t mean your granola won’t have a sweet taste to it. In my case, I like sweet granolas. So, instead of adding monk fruit, stevia, honey or maple syrup; I added dates. Dates are high in fiber and antioxidants and also add a super sweet taste to any foods.

But let’s start from the beginning. The ingredients I used where:

+ OATS (to your preference, I added 3 cups)

+ OATS (3 cups)

+ ALMONDS (to your preference, I added 2 cups)

+ WALNUTS (to your preference, I added 2 cups)

+ SUNFLOWER SEEDS (to your preference, I added 1 cup)

+ CHIA SEEDS (to your preference)

+ ORGANIC UNSWEETENED DRY COCONUT (1 cup)

+ ORGANIC COLD PRESS COCONUT OIL (1 cups)

+ EGG WHITES (3 eggs)

+ SALT (1 tablespoon)

+ VANILLA EXTRACT (to your preference, I added 4 teaspoons)

+ CINNAMON (to your preference)

+ GINGER POWDER ( to your preference)

First, use a food processor to break down the almonds. It is very important you do this gently and in stages. As you want almond slices, not almond flour. Once you have good chunks of sliced almonds, put them in a separate bowl and proceed to do the same with the walnuts. Once you are done with the almonds and the walnuts, chop down the dates on their own.

Add the remaining of the solid ingredients together in a big bowl (sunflower, chia seeds, and dried coconut) so that you can whisk the egg whites and coconut oil together to add moisture to the mix. Once it is all mixed up, add the vanilla extract, salt, cinnamon and ginger powder to your liking.

Pre heat the oven to 160 C (320 F).

I added 3/4 cup of dried coconut to the mix and then added 1/4 cup as a topping. Crunchy coconut is the BEST!

Use a spatula to spread the granola mix in a parchment paper-covered baking sheet. And cook for 20 min. Make sure you give it a good look after 15 min. I like my granola brown, crunchy and toasty. How do you like yours?