Making homemade granola is so easy, so basic, so flexible, I really am not sure why I’m even posting this “recipe.” Well, of course I’m sharing this recipe because this is a food blog, and I love sharing about my food experiments. However, I also have a sneaking suspicious that there are at least some of you out there like me.
Like me in the sense that you love granola – have loved it for YEARS – yet never took the effort to try making it. In my case, I think I never tried it because I thought it would be hard, or maybe I was too lazy to figure it out.
Well, let me tell you. It’s uber easy, super cheap, very flexible, and tastes so much better than “supermarket” granola. Better yet, you control what you put in there, and you can ensure that the ingredients are free of preservatives, additives, nuts, and the like.
Making this took me a total of 30 minutes, with only 5 minutes prep time. So easy and so good . . .
Homemade Granola
Prep time: 5 minutes
Bake time: 20-25 minutes
Cool time: 10-15 minutes
Ingredients
2 cups oats
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup vegetable oil
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
1-2 T brown sugar (optional – if you like it sweeter)
Preheat oven to 350 °F.
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix until all the oats are somewhat wet. The whole mixture should be a bit clumpy and wet. If you like clusters, you can add a tiny splash of water (like 1-2 tsp) to help some of the oats stick together.
Spread out the mixture on a pan and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. Halfway through baking, you can stir the granola around. It will smell wonderful as the honey begins to slowly caramelize. 
The longer you bake the granola, the darker in color it will become. If you like your granola relatively lightly golden brown, remove it after 20 minutes. It may still seem kind of wet, but don’t worry! It will harden as it cools. Definitely take it out before the honey burns (i.e. when “golden brown” has turned into “black”). I learned this the hard way! After 30 minutes in the oven a portion of my oats had turned brown/black! [Although, to be perfectly honest, I really like slightly burnt food, and I actually loved the slightly burnt sugar flavor in these oats. I ended up eating most of the not-yet-completely-burned-bits of this batch . . YUM!]
Let the granola cool. Stir it around a bit – it will dry up nice and crunchy.
Of course, once you’ve made the basic granola, you can stir in other add-ins like dried fruit, coconut slivers, chocolate chips, etc. I happen to be super picky when it comes to granola, and I actually like mine plain. If you want to add nuts or seeds, you should mix them in with the oats and honey before baking.
Note: this version that I make is not super sweet. If you’re used to the sweetness level of Nature Valley or Quaker granola bars, you might think this is not sweet enough. Feel free to add some brown sugar (1-2 T) during the mixing stage at the beginning to sweeten it up.
Low Fat Version: You can easily lower the fat content by reducing the amount of oil. I tried this recipe by reducing the amount of oil to 1/6 cup. The final product definitely tasted lighter, but still very good. If you are dressing up the granola with other additions anyway (e.g., raisins, chocolate chips, etc) it might be perfectly fine to have low fat granola as the base. In my case, since I was eating the granola plain, I could taste the difference that the fat made, and I slightly preferred the normal “fattier” version.
Over all, this is a rather forgiving recipe as long as you make sure you don’t bake for too long! You can add a touch of molasses into the honey mixture to change the flavor a bit. To lower the fat content, you can simply reduce the amount of oil you add, or try substituting with apple sauce (note: I have not tried this – just read about it). To reduce the likelihood of burning your granola, you can easily bake at lower temperatures and just increase the baking time. Most importantly, monitor the color of the granola and make sure it doesn’t start turning black!
What about you? Have you ever made homemade granola before? If so, I’d love to hear what additional tips you might have to offer.
Nom Nom Nom . . .
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Great recipe – I LOVE homemade granola, sooo much better than store bought!
Ha – My hubby loves burnt food too! =) Nice looking granola – I’ll give it a try sometime.
Looks delicious!
Question: I tried to make granola awhile back (when I only had one child and was too snooty to eat the stuff from Costco…which now I am not…anyway) and it came out weirdly chewy. Do you have any recommendations on what kind of oats to use? Thanks! Hope you and Bryan are doing well ~Jen/Jaia
Hey Jen/Jaia (thanks for putting your “other” name otherwise I would not have known who you were!) – do you think you had enough oil in your granola? Another factor might be that you did not bake it for long enough. I just used regular Quaker oats, although NOT the quick kind, but the traditional kind. I bet the quick oats would not work too well. Hope that helps!
My great aunts granola recipe has sweetened condensed milk! Soo yummy, makes it sweet, adds little chewy clumps where the oats stick together- basically old fashioned oats, 2tbs veg oil, pinch of salt and raisins/nuts etc put on sheet tray and bake til brown and crispy..
You just reminded me that I need to dabble in making my own granola as well. My bf and I just realized how much sugar is in the store-bought kind!
Thanks for sharing!
To improve the toasted flavor of the oatmeal, try toasting your oats before you mix them with the rest of the ingredients. It eliminates the “raw oat” flavor with no risk of burning due to the honey.
I finally made this granola yesterday. I made the low-fat version and left out the brown sugar. It came out perfect. I’ll never buy store-bought granola again!
Awesome! So glad it worked out for you! I ran out of oats, so I need to go to the market and get some more!
Thanks for the great tip!
It’s fun to see other granola ideas; I’ve been baking our household supply for a couple of years now, experimenting a little as the natives will let me. I’ve added puffed corn and puffed millet to the oats and toast it all together – this gives a little textural difference without making it too fussy with nuts, dried fruits, etc.
Made this this weekend. SO. Addicted. Now.
oh thank you for this recipe, super simple, it’s in my oven right now! i hope it turns out as good at yours haha
I made the fattier version and it is in the over right now with chocolate chips and raisins ! 🙂 Hope it turns out yummie
I just mixed rolled oats with my deep brown wildflower honey and baked that. THEN I added a little gob of nutella. Smells like cocoa pebbles. Mmm
I have made this a few times; adjusting the recipe however I feel like for the day. Whether it is adding cinnamon, ground flax, walnuts and or pecans….friends rave about it!
Yay! Thanks so much for letting me know. 🙂
If you add a 1/4 cup crushed nuts and 1/4 cup raisins, and reduce the oil to 1/6 cup, then you assume 10 servings (1/4 cup servings) you get:
Nutrition information (in grams per recipe):
fat = 7.67,
carbohydrates = 47.22,
protein = 9.27,
sodium = 25.99,
fibre = 5.44,
energy = 1287.62,
calories = 297.93
Adding 1/4c oat flour (which you can buy…expensive…or make yourself by putting 1/4c rolled oats into a food processor for about a minute) also makes it clump really well!
Cool! Thanks for the tip.
Just made this. It’s incredible! I added a little bit of cinnamon and about a tablespoon of brown sugar. Just put it in some yogurt, but the yogurt just doesn’t do it justice… I can’t believe something so simple and easy to make tastes so wonderful!
Awesome! I’m thrilled to hear that you enjoyed it! I personally love it too, and it’s been awhile since I made some!
My daughters keep making this, adding different kinds of nuts given what’s in the pantry, and we all just love it!
I LOVE this granola! It is so yummy and so inexpensive to make:) I found this recipe about 2 months ago and now my family and I enjoy always having it on stock in the cupboard. I am never going back to store bought granola again!
Great! I love getting comments like these. 🙂
I will try this recipe tomorrow. I know that I will add some dried fruit after it is cooled. Thank you for posting this. I just fount out I am allergic to wheat, rye, barley and lightly allegic to rice. It is nice to find a recipe that I can make that doesn’t have any of this in it. All the ones that I find in the store, (even the supposed gluten free) have some of these ingredients in them. So again I thank you.
I have substituted unsweetened applesauce with great success in my own granola recipe! Also try adding maple extract instead of vanilla, it makes the house smell fantastic and gives a wonderful flavor. I always bake mine low and slow….250 degrees for 1 1/4 hr, stirring every 20 min. Turns out great! Mmmmmmmmmm love homemade granola!!!
You can also add some wheat germ or flax seed meal before baking for a great nutrient hit.
Does this pretty much yeild 2 cups of granola?
I just made this and threw in some cinnamon too. Very good.
Thanks so much. Baking it now! Love some plain greek yogurt and granola. You’re saving me tons of money, thanks!
How long will this last if i store it in an airtight container?
I’ve never kept it around for super long to find out, but I would guess it should definitely last several weeks?
what if i omit the oil? i
Nice post.. great looking throught
What is the serving size of this aprox?