Easy Healthy Granola with Molasses
This granola is the perfect mix of sweet, crunchy, and salty. It’s perfect for topping your yogurt in the morning or like cereal with some milk. I would normally use maple syrup when making granola, but I didn’t have any when I made this and neither do the stores close to me right now so I chose to use molasses instead. The molasses ends up giving the granola a rich and robust taste that you wouldn’t normally get with maple syrup.
Healthy Homemade Granola
Prep Time: 10 minutes Bake Time: 30-40 minutes
Yield: 8-9, 1/2 cup servings
Ingredients:
2 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup chopped nuts*
3 tablespoons canola oil
1/4 cup molasses*, I used blackstrap
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Optional: 1/2 cup dried fruit*
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silpat.
Place the oats and chopped nuts in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil, molasses, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla extract. Pour the molasses mixture over the oats/nuts and stir until evenly distributed. Pour the granola onto the baking sheet and spread into an even layer.
Bake until just starting to golden, 30-40 minutes, stirring halfway through. Allow granola to cool completely on baking sheet before breaking up the clumps. Add the optional dried fruit at this point.
Store granola covered in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
Notes:
Nuts: You can use any combination of chopped, untoasted nuts here. I used pecans and almonds.
Molasses: if you don’t have molasses, you can use maple syrup instead.
Dried fruit: I like using dried cranberries, but you can use dried cherries, raisins, or any other dried fruit. If the fruit is larger, like apricots, chop it into smaller pieces.
Low FODMAP: use maple syrup instead of molasses. The granola is low in FODMAPs with the dried fruit because of the amount of servings, but you can always omit dried fruit to lower further.
Other Breakfast Recipes
These easy to make pancakes are full of fiber from the oats and protein from the protein powder. I like adding some blueberries or chocolate chips while they cook for extra flavor, but they taste great without any add ins. They’re even great leftover and warmed in the microwave.