Healthy Granola Recipe You'll Love!

This home-made granola recipe is SO good and healthy, you won't have to worry about added sugar, the wrong vegetable oils, or added flavorings and preservatives.

And, it's a heck of a lot cheaper than commercial granolas in the stores! You can select your own organic ingredients and get PLAYFUL with it! It's healthy, nutritious and delicious.

One thing I LOVE about this healthy granola recipe is that making granola is SO creative! You can add what you love, omit what you don't, and create many variations to suit your whimsy of the moment.

THE BASICS

The base is always oats (organic flakes if you can), then you add various combinations of seeds, nuts, maybe a bit of dehydrated organic fruit (if it's organic, it's sulfur and preservative-free), a few extra surprises like coconut flakes, chia, buckwheat, etc. Then, you coat the mixture with a bit of melted coconut oil and organic maple syrup, and.... ta-da! Done!

You'll need a couple of cookie sheets and parchment paper (I like to make a large batch) and a glass jar or other container for safe storage.

Ready to WOW your taste buds with this delightful gift you can give yourself? (And your loved ones if they behave...) It's great as a stand-alone snack, on top of home-made ice-cream or fresh fruit. (I sometimes decorate my oatmeal with it, too!)

SPECIAL NOTE BEFORE WE START:

Some folks avoid grains, seeds and nuts these days because they find them hard to digest. If that's you, you may want to soak them ahead of time to neutralize the naturally occurring phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors, designed by nature to keep them from sprouting until the ideal scenario of sun, water and earth are present for them to grow.

These "anti-nutrients" are there to protect them. Unfortunately, for some folks, they can get in the way of absorption of minerals, and sometimes people feel bloated.

Soaking nuts, seeds, and grains ahead of time neutralizes enzyme inhibitors, releases the full nutrient potential of the food, and makes them more digestible.

I'll be honest and say that I don't ALWAYS soak them ahead of time (I definitely soak my almonds when I make home-made almond-milk). Granola is something I indulge in periodically, and I haven't found that it upsets my tummy.

If you want to learn more about soaking grains, seeds and nuts, you can go here. But first, please check out the recipe!

Okay. Now that THAT'S out of the way...

INGREDIENTS

You can be playful with these amounts. Granola is very forgiving.

6-8 cups organic oat flakes

1 c. raw pumpkin seeds

1 c. buckwheat groats

1/2 c. organic Chia seeds

1 c. mixed nuts and organic cranberries (you can use a trail mix mixture - chopped)

3 Tbl. melted organic coconut oil (needs to coat a lot of ingredients)

4-5 Tbl. organic maple syrup

cinnamon and ginger powder to taste

(OPTIONAL) unsweetened coconut flakes

2 cookie sheets and parchment paper

TO DO:

Preheat oven to 300 F.

Melt the coconut oil under low flame. Mix in maple syrup when melted.

Place all dry ingredients in a large bowl.

This is how beautiful it looks...

Mix the dry ingredients with your clean hands.

Pour the melted coconut oil and maple syrup, stir with a wooden spoon till it's all evenly coated. Then add cinnamon and ginger powder to taste (maybe a tsp. each) so that they stick to the oil and syrup mixture.

Place parchment paper on two cookie trays. Pour granola mix evenly onto the trays. Flatten out so you end up with a thin layer of mixture.

Place in oven.