Vegan Homemade Granola: No sugar or butter added.

Today, I want to blog about a yummy Granola recipe that I just found and tweaked a little bit.  If you don't know me by now, I love clean eating and I'm trying my hardest to fuel my picky toddler with good nutrition.  It can be tricky, but I have found that by making the things he loves that I buy at the store, I am able to make it more healthy and add in some extra healthy stuff!

With that being said, you guessed it my toddler loves cereal!  Well let's face it, so does his mom, and I'm pretty sure I had a ton of cereal when I was pregnant.   Since Granola happens to be my favorite, it's one of his favorites as well.   I had been buying him a huge bag of Cascadian Farms Granola at BJ's which is Organic and healthy, but still more sugar than I would like.  I also think it tastes like cardboard, but he loves it.  It's also not the cheapest cereal, being that it's organic.  

So, being the Pinterest Lover that I am, I happened upon a clean-eating granola recipe and it took me back!  I actually grew up with my mom making just about everything from scratch, and granola was one of them.  Her granola became very famous with my friends, to the point that she would send it to them at college.  I loved it as well!  Granola tastes so much better when it's homemade and Fresh Out The Kitchen (lol, sorry I couldn't resist…I like rap).  Anyway, so a light bulb went off in my head and I decided that I would carry on the granola tradition with my toddler.  

I whipped up the recipe this morning and it literally took me 10 minutes, and probably cost about $1.50 to make.  If you are looking to stock up, I would double even triple the recipe, because it doesn't make a huge amount.  I started small, because I wanted to make sure my little honey would eat it. 

VEGAN GRANOLA

INGREDIENTS

2 cups large flake oats

1 cup unsweetened coconut (optional)

⅓ cup walnuts, roughly chopped

½ cup almonds, roughly chopped

2 Tbsp Wheat Germ (optional)

2 tbsp sunflower seeds

¼ cup pumpkin seeds

¼ cup flax seed, ground

3 tbsp chia seeds

¼ tsp sea salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Wet Ingredients

¼ cup maple syrup (I used Honey Instead)

2 tbsp coconut oil, melted

Dried Fruit

½ cup + 2 tbsp raisins

½ cup dates, pits removed & roughly chopped

cranberries, other dried fruit (optional as well)

cacao nibs, goji berries (other options)

DIRECTIONS

Pre-heat oven to 325°f or 160°c. Cover large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Add dry ingredients (oats, coconut, nuts and seeds) to a large bowl.

Add salt and cinnamon to dry ingredients, mix ingredients until the cinnamon and ingredients are evenly dispersed.

Warm up coconut oil and maple syrup in the microwave in 15 second increments until the coconut oil is melted (making sure not to burn the maple syrup!).

Add coconut oil and maple syrup to dry granola mixture. Stir until all the oats, coconut and seeds are evenly coated with wet mixture.

Spread the granola mixture evenly on parchment covered baking sheet and cook for 15 - 20 minutes (until golden brown). Make sure to stir granola every 5 minutes and that it does not burn :)

Once the granola is golden brown let it cool down for a couple of minutes. Being careful not to burn yourself transfer the granola the large bowl, add dried fruit and mix together until the dried fruit is evenly dispersed!

*Sidenote:  You do not need to use all of these ingredients.  Throw in what you have already available at home.  That's the great thing about granola, you can play around with the ingredients and add in what you like or don't like, so again, don't feel the need to have everything to make this.  

In case you were wondering…YES, my sweet picky toddler ate it!!!