How to Make Homemade Granola with Additions

Granola is one of those commercial items that has a healthy reputation that it often doesn’t deserve. It’s not that granola in and of itself is necessarily “bad” for you, but that it is often packed with a lot of unnecessary ingredients or overloaded with sugars and other ingredients that make it more like a dessert than a breakfast food or an energy-boosting snack.

One of the other downsides to granola is that it is very expensive. It costs a lot to buy just a little. And those little bags and boxes seem to be shrinking all the time.

Granola is extremely easy to make at home, though -- even if you don’t fancy yourself a baker. It is more of a low roasting or drying process than it is a real cooking or baking process.

If you can stir a bowl, you can make granola.

And even better -- you can add, subtract, substitute, and tweak to make your granola just how you like it. You can easily add reserved homegrown foods to it, too.

Jump to:

• Basic Homemade Granola Recipe
• Granola ingredients:
• Granola instructions:
• Adding, subtracting, and using substitutions to make it your own
• Adding in Homegrown Goodness
• When to add in nuts
• When to add in dried fruits and berries
• Homemade Granola Recipe

Basic Homemade Granola Recipe

Let’s start with the basic recipe for homemade granola. Then, read on and watch the videos to see how easily you can change the recipe to suit your own tastes and/or dietary preferences.

See the section at the end to see how you can put other good ingredients and possibly homegrown goodness to work in your granola, too.

Granola ingredients:

• 4 cups uncooked oats
• ½ cup wheat germ
• 1 cup grated coconut
• 1 cup nuts, such as sliced almonds
• 1 cup sunflower seeds
• ¾ cup oil (vegetable oil or a substitution, listed below)
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup honey
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ teaspoon salt

Granola instructions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a medium mixing bowl.
2. Stir through until evenly combined.

3. The mixture may be a bit clumpy, which is mostly from clumps of liquid sweeteners, but this is fine -- it will melt and mix in when you cook or dry the granola, and some clusters are nice to have in finished granola for some crunch, anyway.
4. Spread the granola mixture out on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Spread it in an even layer, not too deep (about ½ inch thick is good). If you don’t have parchment paper, spray the pan with non-stick oil spray, but make sure it is one without flour.

5. Bake in a 300-degree (F) oven for one-half hour or until done (149℃). Stir every 10 minutes.
6. The mixture may still look a little “soft” while it is warm. It will get crispier as it cools.
7. After half an hour, turn off the oven and let the granola cool out. If it still seems too sticky and soft, bake for 10 to 15 minutes more, stirring and checking after 10 minutes.

8. When finished, let the mixture cool completely before packaging and storing.

To dry in a dehydrator:

1. Prepare the granola mix as above.
2. Line the dehydrator trays. Use parchment paper, paper sheets, or solid silicone mats on your dehydrator trays.
3. Spread the mixture out in a thin single layer on the trays.
4. Dehydrate at 145℉ (63℃) for about three hours.
5. Stir after every hour.
6. Granola is done when the mixture is crunchy when cooled.
7. Cool completely before packing and storing.

Storing homemade granola:

Store in an airtight container. For longer storage, a glass jar and sealed cover is best (such as a mason jar or canning jar with a tight sealing lid).

If you will be using your granola within a few weeks, it’s fine to store it in a Tupperware (™) type container or zipper-seal bag (like a Ziploc (™)).

Adding, subtracting, and using substitutions to make it your own

You can basically make any substitutions, additions, or subtractions that you want to the basic granola.

Leave out or replace sweeteners for a lower-sugar recipe. Leave out ingredients you don’t like. Add in ingredients you like.

Use ingredients from your own home orchard or berry patch (see the section on adding in homegrown goodness below).

Going gluten-free? Leave out the wheat germ.

Moving away from seed oils? Use a different oil or fat instead.

The beauty of making granola is that, other than the oats, which are the base of the recipe, nothing else is that critical to the structure of the granola. So it’s easy to add or subtract ingredients or to replace things with other preferred ingredients or with something else that you have on hand.

For example, granola isn’t like a cookie, where sugar is going to be a major component of the dough. Reducing granulated sugars or removing them completely will change things a bit but will not ruin your granola.

Oil and fats options and substitutions:

The original recipe calls for vegetable oil, but that is something a lot of us are moving away from. Or, your decision to substitute the oil may just be that you don’t have a specific fat or oil on hand, and you want to work a substitution.

Some fat or oil is wanted in the granola to make it crisp up and give that crunchy flavor and the clusters we like in granola.

To switch out fats or oils, try

• Olive oil
• Melted butter
• Coconut oil
• Canola oil
• Vegetable oil

Substitute these one to one for the oil called for in the basic recipe.

Sweetener options and substitutions:

For the liquid sweetener, try

• Maple syrup
• Molasses
• Agave syrup
• Honey

For the dry sweetener, consider

• Stevia (stevia is strong, so start with considerably less and work up from there; conversions vary and can differ by brand, but start with ½ teaspoon to replace ¾ cup of sugar)
• Pure cane sugar
• Brown sugar

Adding in Homegrown Goodness

Practically any dried fruit or berry is a candidate for adding to your homemade granola. If dehydration is your thing, making homemade granola and adding your dried fruits and berries is an excellent way to use them!

Nuts of nearly any kind are perfect for granola, too. They are an excellent source of protein to add to your granola mix.

Some of the things you might grow, forage, or produce that work well in granola include:

• Nuts of any kind
• Dried berries, including strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and others
• Dried apple pieces
• Dried apricots
• Dried peaches
• Dried raisins
• Dried Cranberries

Keep in mind that you don’t have to use just one type of any of these ingredients. You can mix and match berries, mix and match nuts, or mix and match berries and nuts!

This makes your flavor possibilities almost endless.

When to add in nuts

Nuts are best roasted, so you should add them to the mix with the oats and other ingredients before you bake or dry the granola.

Stir nuts into the granola mix before you bake it.

When to add in dried fruits and berries

You don’t need to cook or dry your berries or fruits any more than they already are. So, don’t add dried fruits at the beginning. Instead, add them at the end.

After you bake or dry your granola mix, add in any dried fruit or berries. Let the granola cool, sprinkle the berries or fruit over the top, and then package to store.

Homemade granola goes great with choose-a-flavor fruit yogurt! Use it as a topping for a homemade yogurt parfait! You can even make your own clean homemade yogurt -- it’s super simple!