Crunchy Maple Granola

Tasty, crunchy, and healthy maple granola!

Crunchy Maple Granola

Serves 10; Yields 5 ½ cups

Total Time:  50 min

Prep Time: 15 min

Cook Time:  35 min

Ingredient

• 3 cups old fashioned oats
• 1 cup pecans, chopped
• ¼ cup light brown sugar, packed
• ¼ tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ¼ cup vegetable/canola oil
• ½ cup maple syrup
• 2 tsp vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Add the dry ingredients (oats, pecans, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon) to a large bowl and stir to combine.
3. Stir the wet ingredients (oil, maple syrup, vanilla) together and add to the dry ingredients.
4. Stir until everything is fully incorporated.
5. Spread the mixture on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
6. Bake for 35 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.
7. Allow to cool completely before serving.
8. Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature.

 

It’s a pretty awesome feat when tasty and healthy can be combined in the same sentence!  This granola features pure maple syrup, pecans, and vanilla extract.  Try this out and you’ll never buy granola from the store again!

This recipe contains 8 ingredients:  maple syrup, old fashioned oats, pecans, canola oil, light brown sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and a bit of kosher salt.

I’m originally from upstate New York and have grown up eating pure maple syrup all my life (#spoiled).  I must encourage you to use pure maple syrup for this recipe (any grade will do) – I promise you won’t be disappointed!  Also be sure to use old fashioned oats, rather than quick oats or instant oats.  Both quick oats and instant oats would produce a mushy, sad granola because they are partially cooked and rolled thinner than old fashioned oats.

Pure maple syrup from Upstate New York!

Old fashioned oats are a must!

The first step is to roughly chop the pecans (don’t worry about uniformity here).  Then add all the dry ingredients (oats, pecans, salt, cinnamon, brown sugar) to a bowl and combine!

Yay pecans!!

Dry ingredients

All stirred up!

Next, stir together the maple syrup, oil, and vanilla (I just mixed them in my glass measuring cup) and combine with the dry ingredients:

Yayyy!  It’s starting to look like granola now!  Now, it’s time to spread the granola in an even layer on a LINED baking sheet.  This will save you a ton of cleanup afterwards and will prevent the granola from bonding to the pan.

Don’t forget to line the baking sheet with parchment paper!

Placing the mixture on the baking sheet.

Make sure the granola is spread out in an even layer.

Looking pretty tasty!

Raw granola – ready for the oven!

Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for a total of 35 minutes.  Stir the granola at the 15 and 30 min marks.

Stirring after 15 minutes.

All done!

Close up of the finished product. What a beauty!

Voila!  Here is the finished product:

Look at all the crispy crunchiness!  Mmmmm tasty maple syrup, pecans, and cinnamon.  This is amaze on top of yogurt with berries.  Be sure to store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature.  It will last for a few weeks, if you’re not tempted to eat it all in one sitting like I am….

Please let me know what you think of my first recipe!  Feel free to customize it and let me know what you try!  I’m already thinking of new additions… perhaps some dried fruit.  Or coconut.  Or chocolate.  Yeah, definitely chocolate…. 😉