This chocolaty granola tastes not-too-sweet, has a nutty flavor and helps you use up ingredients you have on hand. No granola will go to waste—you’ll probably wish you’d made more—and those bits and pieces in the cupboard that found a home no longer risk going uneaten. Win-win!
Homemade granola: Ultra-processed food (UPF) replacement
In his best-selling book, Ultra-Processed People, scientist, doctor and award-winning BBC broadcaster Chris van Tulleken explores the science and health impacts of UPFs, which make up as much as 60 percent of diets in the UK and the US. And he does so in a non-judgmental way. As the book description states, “It’s not you, it’s the food.” That “food” consists of substances that, until recently, we’ve never consumed in all of human history, manufactured by huge conglomerates that profit wildly from pushing food that isn’t food. (Read more about the book here.)
If you’d like to eat fewer UPFs, and don’t know where to start, consider tweaking your breakfast routine. Breakfast can be very simple (as can any meal) and cutting the morning UPFs likely won’t require a major lifestyle overhaul. If you currently buy cereal, consider making this granola. Cooking it does require more work than opening a box but it tastes delicious and you control what goes into it. (Also, have you seen the price of cereal?! Corporations continue to gouge consumers because they can.)
Most breakfast cereals undergo heavy processing. Manufacturers turn inexpensive grain into a wet sludge, add back in the vitamins and minerals that processing strips out, throw in sugar and preservatives, form kid-appealing shapes and package that cereal into plastic-lined cardboard boxes plastered with kid-appealing characters—and parent-appealing health claims. We pay a premium for this industrial processing. Processing accounts for nearly 25 percent of the cost of food, more than any other factor, including packaging, marketing, energy, transportation, retail markups and so on.
Clear-out-the-pantry ingredients
Declutter your cupboards and eat delicious food. Some of the ingredients I used:
- Coarsely ground oat flour helps bind the granola, rendering bigger clusters.
- I had coconut pulp left over from making coconut milk so I added some to my test batches of granola for this post. Okara, the soybean pulp rendered from homemade soy milk and tofu, tastes great in granola.
- A bit of tahini pulp—not quite seed butter but close enough—left over from making toasted sesame oil went into one of my test batches.
- I added pecans and walnuts for the nuts but use whatever nuts you have on hand. Ditto for the seeds.
- Low on olive oil, for one batch, I used a combination of olive oil and avocado oil.
- If you include the optional dried fruit, add whatever you find in the cupboard: raisins, cranberries, dates, apricots, cherries. But if you’ve run out of dried fruit, make this anyway.
Granola baking and serving tips
- A very light greasing of the baking sheet does make removal a little easier but I don’t bother. As you can see in the pic of the partially eaten tray of granola up above, it doesn’t stick.
- If you prefer bigger clumps of granola, don’t stir it during baking.
- I turn the oven off after 35 minutes and let the granola sit in the oven for 5 more minutes.
- Because this tastes so delicious even without the dried fruit, I made that ingredient optional.
- The combination of ingredients goes especially well with homemade coconut milk.
Clear-Out-the-Cupboards Chocolaty Granola
Ingredients
- 3 ¼ cups old-fashioned oats, divided
- ⅓ cup cocoa powder
- ½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- 1 cup chopped raw nuts: walnuts, pecans, almonds
- 1 cup raw seeds: sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, chia, flax
- ½ cup leftover pulp from homemade milk: coconut, seed or nut pulp, okara (soybean pulp) optional
- 1 ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- 2 tablespoons nut butter or seed butter
- ¼ cup olive oil, avocado oil or melted coconut oil
- ½ cup maple syrup
- 1 cup loosely packed dried fruit: raisins, cranberries, chopped dates, chopped cherries optional
Instructions
- Lightly grease a baking sheet.
- Grind up ¾ cup of the oats in a blender* (see Note). In a large bowl, combine the ground oats with the remaining 2 ½ cups of oats, cocoa powder, coconut, nuts, seeds, leftover pulp if using and sea salt.
- In a small bowl, combine the nut butter, oil and maple syrup. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until the dry ingredients are evenly coated.
- Using a fork, spread the granola in an even layer across a cookie sheet. Bake at 300℉ for 35 to 40 minutes until dry. If you prefer big clusters, do not stir during baking. If you prefer smaller clumps of granola, stir every 15 minutes during baking.
- Remove from the oven and allow the granola to cool on the pan. Remove from the pan and store in jars, adding dried fruit, if using, as you fill the containers.
Notes
- Ground up oats help make larger clusters. Skip this step if size doesn’t matter.
