How to Make Easy Homemade Granola
Here’s how to make easy homemade granola to fit your cravings or what you have in your pantry. Make your next batch of granola just the way you want it!
A few years ago I discovered that homemade granola was SO MUCH BETTER than the stuff I bought at the grocery store, and I’ve never looked back.
This easy homemade granola is sweet, crunchy, and full of so much flavor. And the best part about it is completely adaptable! You can use whatever mixins you like, choose your favorite sweetener like honey or maple syrup, and add even more flavor with ground cinnamon or vanilla extract.
I have suggestions for flavor combinations like nutty-coconut, cherry-almond, and peanut butter-chocolate, but I also include instructions and tips to make your own delicious granola combination.
How to make easy homemade granola
To make granola at home you need just 6 things:
- Old-fashioned rolled oats
- Sweetener
- Oil or butter
- Salt
- Mix-ins like nuts or dried fruit
- Additional flavorings like cinnamon or vanilla
Start with oats and mix-ins
The base for granola is old fashioned rolled oats, but you’ll want to add other mixins for flavor, texture, heartiness, and fun! I usually keep a ratio of 2 cups of oats to 1-2 cups of total mixins. Here are some options to choose from, add one or several:
- Nuts— pecans, walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, and peanuts, etc. You can leave them whole or give them a rough chop.
- Dried fruit— cranberries, cherries, and blueberries, etc.
- Coconut— I prefer unsweetened wide-slice coconut or coconut “chips” but you can use shredded or flaked coconut.
- Chocolate chunks or chocolate chips
Tip: Dried fruit and chocolate should only be added after granola is baked and cooled.
Choose sweetener, flavorings, and oil or butter
Feel free to use any of these sweeteners:
- Maple syrup
- Honey
- Brown sugar
And any of these oils or fats:
- Olive oil
- Canola oil
- Melted coconut oil
- Melted butter
For additional flavor, add one or more of the following:
- Vanilla extract
- Other extracts like almond, coconut, etc.
- Ground cinnamon or other spices like cardamom, pumpkin spice, etc.
- Nut butter like peanut butter or almond butter (melted)
Combine and bake
- Combine dry ingredients. In one large bowl combine the oats, mix-ins (except dried fruit or chocolate), salt, and any other non-liquid additions like cinnamon.
- Combine liquids. In another bowl whisk sweetener, oil/butter and any liquid flavorings like vanilla.
- Toss together. Make sure dry ingredients are completely covered and mixture is uniform.
- Dump out on sheet pan lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
- Bake low and slow. This way the granola toasts and dries out without burning. Stir just once while baking.
- Let cool completely. Resist the urge to stir! Let granola cool completely, then break into chunks. If you stir while it’s still warm, you’ll destroy all the delicious clumps.
- Add any final mix-ins like dried fruit or chocolate.
Tip: It can be hard to know when granola is done as it should still appear wet when it comes out of the oven (it will finish drying as it cools). Look for oats and mix-ins that are lightly toasted, and granola should have a delicious sweet and buttery aroma.
Ways to use this granola
There’s no wrong way to enjoy homemade granola, and I promise that you will enjoy it! Here are a few ideas in case you need them:
- Serve with milk or yogurt and fresh fruit
- Snack on handfuls straight from the jar
- Add to trail mix
- Sprinkle over ice cream
- Stir into smoothies
How to Store Granola
Granola will last for about a month stored in an airtight container at room temperature. Just make sure granola is completely cool before storing.
Shop Tools for this Recipe
How To Make Easy Homemade Granola
Ingredients
Basic Granola Recipe:
- 2 cups old-fashioned oats (180 grams)
- 1 - 2 cups nuts, coconut, dried fruit, seeds, or chopped chocolate (140-280 grams)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ - ½ teaspoon spice such as cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, pumpkin pie spice
- ⅓ cup olive oil, vegetable oil, melted butter, or melted coconut oil (about 66 grams)
- ¼ cup sweetener such as sugar, maple syrup or honey (about 84 grams)
- 1 teaspoon flavoring such as vanilla, coconut, or almond extract
Nutty Coconut Granola:
- 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (180 grams)
- ½ cup sliced almonds (43 grams)
- ½ cup chopped pecans (57 grams)
- ½ cup unsweetened coconut (30 grams)
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅓ cup coconut oil , melted (75 grams)
- ¼ cup maple syrup (77 grams)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cherry Almond Granola:
- 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (180 grams)
- 1 cup ½almonds (43 grams)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup melted butter (75 grams)
- ¼ cup honey (66 grams)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- ½ cup dried cherries (71 grams)
Peanut Butter Chocolate Granola:
- 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (180 grams)
- ⅔ cup peanuts (95 grams)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup coconut oil , melted (75 grams)
- 2 tablespoons peanut butter , melted (33 grams)
- ¼ cup maple syrup (77 grams)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅔ cup mini chocolate chips (116 grams)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Line sheet pan with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
- In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients: oats, nuts, coconut, salt, spices etc.
- In a separate bowl, combine the liquids: oil/melted butter, extracts, and liquid sweetener.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly so that everything is moistened.
- Spread out on a large sheet pan and bake until lightly toasted, 25-30 minutes, stirring once. The granola will still appear wet but will dry as it is cools.
- Let granola cool completely in the pan, then bread into chunks. Add any dried fruit or chocolate chips if using.
- Store granola in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 month.
Notes
- Use the Basic Granola Recipe as a starting place to create your own granola combination, or use one of the provided combinations.
- Makes 4 cups.
- Nutrition information calculated for "Nutty Coconut" combination.
- Be sure to not add dried fruit or chocolate until after baked granola is cooled.
Made this on the weekekend, great recipe. Tastes great.Thanks for sharing .
Back in the 70’s people had to revert to commodities and our family was one of them. My husband worked construction and we had four kids. In those days you just didn’t run to Welfare and have someone hand you money and food stamps. My husband was laid of for about four months and we went on commodities. Very embarrassing but necessary. We were given recipes to make things that were cheap to make and granola was the favorite things my kids loved. They loved it for breakfast with the powdered milk we were given and fruit. I had forgotten about making it until I saw this post and am now 78 and I’m gonna make some for my great grandson. Thank You. I guess what goes around, comes around.
Wow. Beautiful story ?
This is extremely useful! My first batch was delicious! I added coarsely chopped almonds, unsweetened coconut, honey, canola oil, vanilla, and cinnamon to the oats. It wasn’t overwhelmingly sweet like some store-bought granolas are.
Also, homemade granola is a dream come true to me–I can never eat the gourmet ones because of my peanut allergy and have always had to buy the basic boxed stuff, but now I can create my own gourmet blends! Nuts are still a limitation, though, because I can only eat one brand of almonds (thankfully widely available) and one brand of pecans (sadly rather scarce).
Anyway, thank you so much for posting this!
Looks yum…can this be tried with Jaggery?
I’m so sorry, but I am not familiar with Jaggery so I had to do a little google search. 🙂 I’m sure you could, though since I am unfamiliar with it I couldn’t give any amount suggestions. Feel free to experiment though!
PS: We just completed our first-ever batch of coconut yogurt today as well with the easiest possible recipe: Cartons of coconut cream, capsules of probiotics, stir, leave in a mason jar for less than 24 hours in our tropical heat and it was done.
It’s past midnight in Singapore. My daughter and I just finished cleaning up after making an improvised version of this including simmering the butter with some old cinnamon quills over a low heat and dark brown sugar we found in the cupboard. We used organic hulled oats, bags of mixed dried fruit and nuts on sale, Madagascar vanilla essence left over from making paraben-free soap.
The mixture alone was good enough to eat without baking. Dead easy. It started burning after 10 minutes at 350F but we caught it in time to salvage most of it. Thank you so much! I’ll never eat shop-bought granola again.
Wow, this looks amazing, and looks fairly easy!
How long does this keep for? Want to make quite a batch, but depends on how long it stays okay for..
Thank you 🙂
If stored in an airtight container, it should keep for up to several weeks!
Sounds good. I will be making this for Holiday gifts, especially for my best friend and his nutritionist Girlfriend! I am fortunate to have an unending, free supply of maple syrup to go in mine. I will also make some without any sweetener for a coworker who doesn’t eat sugar of any kind.
What a great idea, making it for holiday gifting!
My son and I made this together today. He wanted pecan and maple. I wanted cherry pecan. I made a pan with pineapple, mango, and pecan and it was the best one. We used coconut oil in place of oil and added coconut to all 3 kinds. Thanks so much for the receipe.
What else can be added instead of nuts my sons girlfriend is allergic to nuts?
Add whatever you’d like! You could increase the oats or coconut or add things like seeds (not sure if those are excluded from nut allergies?) and dried fruit. Even chopped chocolate. If you use dried fruit, add it after the baked granola has cooled.
Thanks for the easy to follow base formula! I was down to half a cup of oats so quartered the batch. Pecans and coconut with almond and vanilla extract. It’s absolutely delicious!
That would never last for two weeks in my house. Thank you!
Ok, I just tried this. Great recipe for me, because I’m allergic to nuts & I can substitute what most would consider way too many sunflower seeds. A word of warning… 30 min at 350 F in my oven fills the oven with smoke (a bit of a surprise) and makes the granola dark brown — edible, and not bad, but not what anyone looking for normal granola flavor would expect. Burnt granola is not sweet – it’s very toasty tasting. Next batch will get about 15 minutes. The key concept, for baking is “until golden brown”… 30 minutes can be overdone.
I sweeten mine by cooking some dates in some water (quantities are flexible);until really soft and then beat it thoroughly until I have a liquid that looks a little like tea- no pieces of fruit- and mix that in the bowl with the other ingredients before baking. I also like to add the finely grated rind of an orange after it has cooled.
Brilliant! Thanks for sharing!
Great granola recipe. It’s also a good recipe for diabetics. Made a batch for me, who eat regular sugar and a batch for my dad with diabetes using Splenda as the sugar substitute. So yummy. Thanks a lots.
How wonderful, thanks so much for the comment!
Great page. I have to say though, it’s much better without the poison sugar. I’ve been making my own granola for years and if you have fruit you really don’t need to add any sweeteners.