Nutrition

Homemade Granola

Jul 08, 2019

Natia Van Heerden

All things food and triathlon. I am a qualified professional chef and an professional triathlete. Cooking easy, healthy food and fueling my journey one dish at a time.

Granola is super easy to make and makes up a balanced breakfast when eaten with full cream milk or plain Greek yoghurt, and a sliced banana. It also doubles up as an anytime snack.

When making your own granola, make sure to buy good quality ingredients like rolled oats, good quality nuts and seeds, and make sure you have a variety of ingredients to make your granola exciting to eat. Add some flaked coconut, raisins, dried banana/ strawberry.

Not only does homemade granola taste good, but there are plenty of nutritional value that you get from the ingredients used:

- Oats are a good source of fibre and Iron.

- Nuts and seeds add healthy unsaturated fats.

- Granola bought from the supermarket can be packed with unwanted sugar and oils, thus by making it yourself you know and can control what you put into your body.

- The plain unsweetened yoghurt or milk provides a source of calcium and some protein.

- Preservative free.

- And of course, carbohydrates to fuel your next session.

So let’s get started with what you’ll need:

- 2 cups rolled oats, untoasted
- 2 cups mixed nuts (hazelnuts, macadamia, almonds, cashews, pecans)
- 1 cup mixed seeds like pumpkin, sunflower, linseeds, chia seeds, sesame
- 2 tbsp flaked coconut
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 200g salted butter
- 1 cup raisins

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160’C

2. Melt the butter in a pot and then add the sugar, stir until dissolved.

3. In a large mixing bowl, add the oats, coconut, nuts and seeds.

4. Pour the butter mixture over and stir well until completely combined.

5. Pour everything out onto a baking tray and bake for 45 minutes until golden brown, stirring with a fork every 15minutes.

6. Remove from the oven, pour into the large mixing bowl and add the raisins and dried fruit.

7. Leave to cool.

Store in an airtight container, like a glass jar. It will keep for about 2 weeks if you can contain yourself. We usually finish it within a few days!

homemade granola

Just a few tips:

You can add cocoa, cinnamon or nut butter to your granola for variation.

Never bake the raisins with the oats and nuts, as it goes very hard and bitter. So always add your fruit at the end. If you are adding peanut butter, you can add that to your butter mixture and if you’d like to add cocoa or cinnamon, mix that in with the dry oats right in the beginning stages.

Written by

Natia Van Heerden