Learn how to make homemade granola in all your favorite flavors! With this complete guide to healthy granola, we give you tips, tricks, and our best homemade granola recipes!
Oh, granola! One of my absolute favorite things to make.
There's so much to love about homemade granola, but one of the reasons why I adore it so much is how customizable it is. It's one of those recipes that you can totally change based on what you have on hand. And you can make flavor after flavor combo!
Since I've shared 10+ healthy granola recipes here before – and after making hundreds of batches on my own – I've learned that granola can be made using a somewhat formulaic approach. And today I'm going to detail that approach with you. We're talking all about how to make homemade granola and everything that goes into it!
Why I Love Homemade Granola
1. Meal prep friendly. Granola is one of those great options for meal prep. You often make big batches of it and those batches will last you 2+ weeks. You can also freeze granola if you want to make sure it stays super duper fresh!
2. Breakfast, snack, or dessert. Granola can be enjoyed for breakfast, as a healthy snack or even a simple dessert. I love putting a sprinkle of granola on my banana ice cream!
3. Easy to Make. The best part about homemade granola is that it's really easy to make. Typically you can use just one bowl and it's about 10 minutes (max) of hands-on time!
4. Customizable. As you’ll see in just a second, granola is totally customizable meaning you can really make any type of flavor you’d like! As long as you’re using the base recipe outlined below, you can make a different flavor each and every time!
What You Need to Make Granola
Before we talk about how to create your own dreamy flavors, let's first talk about the essentials you will need for any homemade granola recipe. These are pretty standard items, so my guess is that you probably already have all these in your pantry!
You'll need the following ingredients:
- Rolled Oats
- Nuts/Seeds
- Maple Syrup
- Neutral Flavored Oil
- Nut Butter
- Spices & Extracts
Using these six simple ingredients as your base, you can create any granola flavor you'd like!
The Perfect Granola Formula
Here's the formula for creating perfect granola every time! This base recipe yields about 6 cups of granola – which is about 24 servings. I use 1/4 cup as my serving size and this whole batch should last you at least a few weeks!
Ingredients needed:
- 5 cups rolled oats
- 1 cup nuts/seeds
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 1/2 cup nut butter
- 1/4 cup coconut oil
- 1 – 2 teaspoons spices/extracts
Instructions:
- Add the oats and nuts into a bowl. Stir together and set aside.
- Melt together the syrup, almond butter, oil, and flavorings either on the stove or in the microwave. Stir together until smooth.
- Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry and stir to combine. You want the granola to be as fully coated as possible.
- Transfer the granola onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake 325ºF for 35 mins, flipping every 15.
- Allow it to cool completely before transferring into a sealed container.
How to Customize Your Granola Recipe
Get creative! I've outlined here some of my favorite ways to make granola different + unique, but if you come up with a tasty idea you don't see here I'd love to hear about it. 🙂
- Use quinoa flakes or puffed cereal! Feel free to swap some of the oats with quinoa flakes or puffed cereal. Use the same overall proportion (5 cups), but you can make that a combination of any of these ingredients!
- Change up the nuts! The nuts are totally interchangeable. Using the same 1 cup proportion, you can use any variety of nuts or seeds that you'd like.
- Use a different sweetener! Try honey, agave, rice syrup or even date syrup instead of the maple.
- Try different nut butter! Not a fan of almond of peanut? Try cashew, sunflower seed, even coconut butter will work.
- Use spices! This is where you can really have fun – anything from cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger, turmeric, etc. can be used in granola.
- Use Extracts! Just like spices, extracts can be another great way to add flavor! I love vanilla, almond, orange, lemon, etc. You really can't go wrong.
Granola Troubleshooting Tips
Now if you're really trying to learn how to make homemade granola, there are likely going to be a few fails along the way. Here are some of my best granola troubleshooting tips:
- Won't get crispy. If your granola won't get crispy, allow it to cool in the oven with the oven turned off and the door slightly propped open. This will allow more of the moisture to escape and will act as kind of a “dehydrator” for your granola. Promise it will be SUPER crispy after a few hours!
- Areas of raw oats. It's not stirred enough! My formula for homemade granola can be a little hard to stir, so you really want to make sure that everything is evenly mixed in. Otherwise, you will get those “raw” spots.
- Browns too quickly. If your granola cooks too quickly, your oven is too hot. I'd recommend reducing the oven temp even more and cooking it for longer. Slow and low is how you can more easily avoid burning.
- Some areas burn, others don't. This is probably a result of your oven having some hot spots. In order to combat this, simply stir your granola or rotate your pan more frequently.
The 10 BEST Homemade Granola Recipes
- Honey Blueberry Quinoa Granola
- Clustery Banana Bread Granola
- Best Ever Vanilla Almond Granola
- Simple Honey Granola
- Mom's Nutty Date & Coconut Granola
- Oil-Free Chocolate Almond Butter Granola
- Maca Maple Quinoa Granola
- Peanut Butter & Banana Quinoa Granola
- Grain-Free Coconut Granola
- Healthy Pumpkin Quinoa Granola
Simple Homemade Granola Recipe
Ingredients
- 5 cups old fashioned oats
- 1 cup almonds (or nuts of choice)
- 1/2 cup maple syrup (or liquid sweetener of choice)
- 1/2 cup almond butter (or nut/seed butter of choice)
- 1/4 cup coconut oil (or oil of choice/water)
- 1 - 2 teaspoons spices/flavorings
Instructions
- Add the oats and nuts into a bowl. Stir together and set aside.
- Melt together the syrup, almond butter, oil, and flavorings either on the stove or in the microwave. Stir together until smooth.
- Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry and stir to combine. You want the granola to be as fully coated as possible.
- Transfer the granola onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake 325ºF for 35 mins, flipping every 15.
- Allow to cool completely before transferring into a sealed container.
Nutrition
What flavor combination are you going to create?
I can't wait to see what granola flavors you guys come up with! Let me know in the comments below.
⇣ PIN FOR LATER ⇣
Thank you for the amazing post with all the great tips. I have few questions please, what if we want to add cocoa powder to make it chocolatey, also how about using protein powder, can we just add (cocoa powder, protein powder or a combination of both) as an extra or it should be swaped with some other ingredient, when using a fruit puree, can we use it instead of the oil or is the oil essential? So can I use 1/2 cup nut butter with 1/4 cup banana? Or maybe more banana 1/2 a cup and 1/4 cup nut butter?
You can definitely make all of those changes! What I love about this granola is that it is so easy to customize! I would do 1/2 cup of nut butter and 1/4 of banana. Let me know how it turns out!!
For what ratio do you think I could substitute the nut butter to coconut oil? Thanks is advice, can’t wait to try it out🤗
I got 1:1!
I am so excited to try this!!!
Let me know how it works for you!! xx