Sweet and salty, with a warm nutty flavor and the crunch from the toasted quinoa and oats. This salted maple granola will be your new favorite breakfast, snack, and dessert. I especially liked it in a bowl of almond milk topped with fresh blueberries. I love the combination of oats and blueberries. It’s like grown up cereal you can still feel fancy while eating. Comes together in a flash, and stores for at least two weeks in an airtight container on your counter. It’s highly unlikely it’ll even last you that long, but for those with even more squirrel like tendencies you can store it in the freezer for 6 months. Recipe from the breakthrough vegan cookbook, Thug Kitchen.
Salted Maple Granola: The dry ingredients
Simple. If you are gluten free, use gluten free oats. Regardless, use old fashioned or rolled oats (not the quick cooking type). The quinoa I was apprehensive about but it gave a nice crunchy little pop and it wasn’t weird in a non savory application at all! The nuts are your choice. I used a mix of brazil nuts, pecans, almonds, walnuts, and pumpkin seeds, and loved the end result. You can use just one nut or as many as you like. Dried cranberries give a nice tart little chew and contrast to the mix.
Salted Maple Granola: The wet ingredients
To keep things healthy and still sweet and yummy, we use maple syrup or honey as a sweetener. Maple syrup keeps things vegan (but a little expensive). I also love that deep kind of intense maple syrup gives the granola as opposed to a more mellow honey but both will definitely work. The sea salt gives that little contrast to the sweetness, and I loved almond butter with this because I’m recently been obsessed with almond butter and it coats the granola and gives it so much flavor and richness. The coconut oil gets the granola to bake up all golden brown and crunchy and the vanilla extract gives a little aroma and scent. And there you have it!
Salted Maple Granola
Ingredients
- 2 cups rolled oats GF if needed
- 3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
- 1 1/4 cup mixed nuts and seeds
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 cup maple syrup can sub honey
- 1/2 cup almond or peanut butter
- 1/4 cup melt coconut oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a large skillet over medium heat, toast oats and quinoa for around 5 minutes.
- Combine the nuts/seeds and cranberries in a large bowl, then add the toasted oats and quinoa and stir.
- In a small saucepan, combine the maple syrup, peanut/almond butter, coconut oil, vanilla and salt. Stir until melted.
- Add the maple syrup mix onto the dry ingredients, and stir until combined.
- Press into a 9×13 baking dish and bake at 180 C for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Let it cool slightly then break apart into granola clusters.
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