Homemade Granola Recipe

Old-fashioned homemade granola recipe, the kind that's made slow and simple with whole oats. This is the real-deal stuff. Sweetened with honey and molasses. No shortcuts or mystery ingredients. Once you’ve got the base, the best part is having it plain or getting to choose your own add-ins.

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Recipe Overview for Making Granola

1. Grind up half of the old-fashioned oats.

2. Heat the shortening and mix the binders all together. It's like a foamy and creamy sauce that you stir with the oats.

3. Now, lets press this mixture into the parchment-lined baking sheet. You can use a baking mat if you wish. I use a piece of the parchment to press it down so it doesn't stick to my hands. This is the fun part. 🙂

Just a few notes on some of the ingredients:

Quaker Old Fashioned Oats: Oatmeal is the backbone of granola. Oats crisp nicely in the oven, giving you that satisfying chew. In this recipe, we divide whole oats in half, and then pulverize. Grinding them up a little gives the granola an easier texture. Other recipes here on the blog you might like are No-Bake Cookies or Banana Oatmeal Squares.

Molasses: Old-fashioned flavor. A darker, richer sweetener. Molasses deepens flavor and lends to a darker color. I can't get enough of Grandma's Molasses. My cabinet is just not the same if it's not sitting in there.

Honey: Another binder and sweetener. Honey’s stickiness helps the oats adhere and cluster. I always think granola traditionally needs a tad of honey for that classic flavor. Plus, I have this local honey and I'm in love with it. Find your local honey and be a customer.

Cinnamon: It's a very small amount in this recipe but needed for that traditional granola flavor. When I added more cinnamon, it overpowered it.

Salt: Just a pinch or more to taste. Salt is a flavor enhancer and rounds out the granola. I have been using the seriously old fashioned salt and you can read about it on my Waldorf Salad Post.

Vegetable shortening: A small amount of a flavorless neutral fat is key. We only use 1 ½ Tablespoons of Crisco or if you are concerned about Hydrogenated Oils, try Spectrum Shortening, it's amazing.

The fat allows the oats to crisp evenly in the oven without drying out. It also helps with browning and gives granola a gently crunchy finish rather than a chalky result. I have tried using butter but it browns the granola too fast and just leaves you with that butter feeling. Regular vegetable oil leaves a greasy after-feel. Coconut oil leaves a coconut taste. That's great if you want coconut flavor.

Recipe Snapshot:

Clustering: Why Compression Matters

One of the secrets to great granola is not disturbing the oats while they bake. Here’s what happens:

• Cluster formation
  When you press (gently compress) the oat mixture into a block or brick shape before baking, the syrups and fat bind the clusters together.
• Minimal disturbance
  If you stir or poke the mixture repeatedly while it’s baking, you break apart those forming bonds. The end result is a loose, grainy or powdery texture instead of nice clusters.
• Breaking after baking
  Let the granola cool and set into a firm sheet. About one hour. Then you break it into the size you prefer. That gives control over texture. If you bake loose from the start, it tends toward chalky crumbs rather than satisfying chunky bits.

So the trick is to compress it (gently), leave it to bake undisturbed, then break it on your own terms after cooling.

Choose Your Add-Ins

One of the best parts of making your own granola is customizing it with different ingredients to suit your taste. Once the oat mixture has baked to a golden brown and the granola cools, that’s when I like to mix in the goodies.

I always let the granola bake and cool completely first, then I break it into clusters and stir in the nuts or dried fruit. This keeps every add-in fresh and full of its own flavor instead of dried out, overbaked, or scorched.

Dried Fruit:

I never bake my dried fruit into the granola because the high heat can make it tough and chewy. Instead, once the granola has cooled to room temperature, I mix in the fruit so it stays soft.

Try adding golden raisins, chopped dried apricots or dates, dried cranberries, cherries, or blueberries. The Bare Toasted Coconut Chips are my favorite too. You can even toss in a handful of chocolate chips and it becomes more dessert-like.

Nuts and Seeds

When it comes to nuts, I like to roast them separately in a skillet or the oven so I can control the toasting and avoid that burnt edge that happens when they bake with the oats. I let them reach my perfect shade of golden brown before stirring them into the cooled granola. Usually, two minutes tossed in a skillet over Medium-High heat.

My favorites are almonds, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, pistachios, and cashews. For extra crunch, I often sprinkle in pumpkin seeds (pepitas) or sunflower seeds.

Storage

Store your finished granola in an airtight container at room temperature.

Homemade granola like this lasts beautifully for a week and tastes fresher than store-bought granola.

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