I know this sounds a little crunchy, but I'm kind of a nut for granola and yogurt. I mean, who doesn't like creamy fatty yogurt with awesomely sweet and crunchy granola? If you don't love it, I just don't understand you. Go on, enjoy your cereal and milk instead ya weirdo.
Well, I've tried and tried and tried to make granola, but it's never quite right. Sometimes it's too soggy and chewy, other times it's just...well...toasted oats and nuts, not even stuck together or resembling granola whatsoever. Over at 100 Days of Real Food, Lisa Leake has a very simple recipe for homemade granola, and I decided to give that one a go. But then I got really ambitious and decided to try the bars, and then wrap them like pretty little Christmas presents for some reason.
Advice: don't wait for them to cool completely before you start breaking them into bars. Let cool about 5 minutes, try scoring the sheet of granola, and then break it into bars when it is almost completely cool.
By the way, WINNER. Yes, I love this granola so much. And there's only ½ cup honey in the entire batch. A batch which makes around, um, 20 bars? Many of mine are misshapen because I waited until they were completely cool before I broke them apart.
So this is a very customizable granola recipe.
Basically, you're looking at:
- 3.5 cups of oats (steel cut for bars, rolled oats for granola)
- 2 cups raw nuts
- 1 cup raw seeds
- spices - cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg
- butter, honey, vanilla
I made two styles by just putting half the plain granola on the cookie sheet, then mixing in carob chips and dried cranberries and then adding it to the other side of the cookie sheet. I love having variety!
I went with sunflower seeds and sliced almonds because they are significantly cheaper than pumpkin seeds and cashews! I already had the walnuts on hand, but finding carob chips and dried cranberries was kind of a pain (Whole Foods - yikes!). Also, in the future, I would probably eliminate the ginger, or reduce it to ½ tsp. I like ginger, but one and a half teaspoons made the granola bars taste very seasonal. Which is perfect for now, but might not be desirable in a few more months. You can basically change the nuts and oats and spices and seeds and fruits as you'd like, but I would NOT change the amount of butter or honey. It helps keep the bars clustered together.
Homemade Crunchy Granola Bars
Ingredients
- 3 ½ cups steel cut oats
- 1 cup sliced almonds raw
- 1 cup walnut baking pieces raw
- 1 cup sunflower seeds
- ¼ cup carob chips half portion
- ¼ cup dried cranberries half portion
- 2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 ½ teaspoon ginger
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 6 tablespoon unsalted butter
- ½ cup honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- optional ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ cup cranberries, ¼ cup carob chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 250 degrees, and line a large rectangular baking sheet with parchment paper. (You’ll be so glad you did.)
- Melt the butter in a small saucepan with the honey. When fully combined, add vanilla.
- Mix together all dry ingredients except the cranberries and carob chips – oats, nuts, sunflower seeds, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.
- Pour wet ingredients over dry and mix well, looking for dry pockets throughout the mixture!
- For regular version, spread the entire mixture in the cookie sheet. I made it pretty tight so it would stick together well. Alternatively, you can reserve half the mixture, add in the cranberries and carob chips, then place on the other half of the cookie sheet or on another sheet altogether.
- Cook for 75 minutes on 250. Remove from oven and let it cool until partially hard – around 5 minutes. Then cut or score the granola to make it easier to break apart when it is completely cool. Enjoy!
Do you need to cook the steel cut oats first?? Or smash them or something. I do see how this could work with old fashion steel oats
You do not need to cook them first! They haven't been pre-cooked, but they're crushed and sliced and make a crumble granola bar here!