How To Make Maple Nut Granola

This is a healthy granola recipe that you can modify to suit your taste and the ingredients you have on hand. Great for breakfast, snacks and lots of other uses, this recipe is easy to make. We’ll use a base of oats, add nuts and seeds, some coconut and use real maple syrup along with a mix of spices for a unique and personalized flavor.

This recipe is naturally gluten free and vegetarian.

Watch a Video

Here is a video of 2 Cooks in the Kitchen making granola:

Granola Ingredients

Our recipe for granola uses quite a few ingredients. You can substitute or omit a lot of them to make it suit your situation but this is the recipe we make over and over because we enjoy it so much.

Gluten Free Oats

We’ll start with our oats. We’ll be using gluten free rolled oats. Oats themselves do not contain gluten but they are often processed in facilities where gluten containing grains, such as wheat, are processed so there is a risk of cross contamination. Oats that are marked gluten free are safe for the celiacs among us. We put the oats in the biggest bowl we have so we have lots of room for mixing our ingredients.

A Mixture Of Nuts and Seeds

To our oats we will add the nuts. We use about one cup of slivered almonds and 3/4 cup each of chopped pecans and chopped cashews or peanuts. Lately we have been liking the peanuts more but we do go back and forth.

Next we add our seeds. We are using pumpkin seeds and flax seeds for our basic recipe but you can omit and substitute as you please. It is worth noting that flax seeds may not be suitable for people with intestinal issues such as diverticulitis. Sunflower seeds are a good substitute that many people would prefer.

Adding Sweeteners

Now we will get some sweeteners into our dry ingredients, starting with a cup of brown sugar. We really want the fuller flavor of brown sugar as opposed to white sugar. We’ll also add what for us is the most important ingredient, flaked or shredded coconut. We have tried several healthier, organic, sugar-free brands of coconut and none of them really work as well as the plain old baking coconut that we have used to make cookies for a long time.

Choose Your Spices

We want to mix all these ingredients together well before adding our spices. The spices are a place where you can alter the flavor to suit your tastes. We like a fairly exotic blend of spices using cinnamon, cardamom, garam masala and just a little nutmeg. You don’t want to get carried away with the nutmeg as it can quickly overtake all the other flavors. We’ll get the spices mixed in thoroughly before starting on our wet ingredients.

Liquid Ingredients

In a smaller bowl we will mix together the oil, maple syrup and salt. We like to use peanut oil for this recipe as it adds more nutty flavor but you can use most any oil. We use real maple syrup and strongly advise against using any form of imitation maple syrup for anything. The flavor difference is very pronounced.

We’ll mix this together with a whisk and then pour a little more than half of the mixture over our oat mixture. We get that mixed in well and then add more of our liquid mixture, mix it in and then add the rest and mix one more time. You can pour it all in at once but we feel like we get it mixed better doing it a little at a time.

Getting Our Granola Ready To Bake

Now our granola is ready for the baking pans. We use cooking spray to grease two 11 X 16 sheet cake pans, like a cookie sheet with low sides. Then we pour half the mixture into each pan and pat it down with a wooden spoon.

Your Choice: Chunky Or Crumbly

You have a choice here. If you like your granola to be chunkier press it firmly into the pans and don’t stir it while it cooks. If you prefer your granola more crumbly leave it looser in the pan and stir it every half hour when you rotate the pans. (More on this in the next step).

Baking Our Granola

Now we go into a 250 degree oven for two hours. We cook both pans at the same time and rotate the pans every half hour, turning them and switching shelves in the oven. This gives us a nice uniform cook. If you want crumbly granola you can stir it each time you rotate the pans. After 2 hours you’ll have a nicely browned granola.

Granola Storage

We’ll let the granola cool for an hour or so and then it’s ready to put away. If you want to at this point you can add dried fruit. Currants are great with this granola and you can use dried cherries, raisins, dried cranberries or a combination. Simply scatter the fruit over the cooked granola and it will mix in when you put it in the container. Store this granola in a container with a tight fitting lid and it will last in the cupboard for a long time.

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