I will let you know up front, this is not healthy granola. If that is what you are looking for, this isn’t your recipe 🙂 This is more of a dessert/ice cream/yogurt/fruit topping type of thing. I usually eat it as a dessert either by the handful or with milk.
It is my favorite for a few reasons. One, it has brown butter. Nothing more needed to say on that. :). It also has ground almonds or pecans as well as coconut flakes tossed with the oats which gives it great nutty flavor and crunch. It has a great vanilla flavor with a hint of orange. You can add in dried fruit like cranberries or blueberries (blueberries are delicious), or my favorite way is to add chocolate chips or chunks. Chocolate goes soooo well with it.
It is simple to make, basically just mix it all together (other than the fruit/chocolate) and bake. It bakes at a lower temp (275) than a lot of granola. This is because the ground nuts and butter can burn easily and you don’t want burnt tasting granola. For the same reason, you need to check it often after about 30 minutes in the oven, because it goes from nicely toasted to burnt pretty quickly.
My Favorite Homemade Granola
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup salted butter
- 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup honey
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup pecans
- 1/2 cup almond meal
- 2 cups rolled oats
- 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
- 1 tsp orange zest optional
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup dried cherries, blueberries, or chocolate chips
Instructions
- Heat oven to 275 and line a baking sheet with foil.
- Heat the butter in a small sauce pan until it foams and then starts to brown. When the brown bits are nice and golden, pour into a bowl and add the brown sugar, honey, salt, vanilla, cinnamon and orange zest.
- Add the oats, pecans, almond meal and coconut flakes and mix really well with clean hands.
- Spread on the cookie sheet and bake for about 45 minutes, stirring after every 15 minutes or so. Watch it closely after 30 minutes because the butter and almond meal burn easily. It will still seem sticky and damp when you take it out, but will quickly harden up once cool.
- When fully cooled, add the dried fruit or chocolate. Store in a airtight container at room temp.