Showing posts with label Pinned It Tried It.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pinned It Tried It.. Show all posts

Monday, January 15, 2018

Pinned It. Tried It. LOVE It: Homemade Honey Almond Granola



A while ago, I  wanted to get more protein and better grains in my breakfast and switched from cereal in the morning to Greek yogurt. Even chocoholics understand we can't live on chocolate alone! 

I usually add some blueberries , dried cranberries, chia seeds, almonds and granola. Granola can get expensive though, especially if you're looking for the kind with better ingredients, so I finally remembered to search Pinterest to see about making my own. Another moment of "Why didn't I do this sooner".

I found this HOMEMADE COCONUT OIL HONEY ALMOND GRANOLA recipe from Julie at  Lovely Little Kitchen that combined all my favorite granola flavors and had easy instructions to follow. 

Please pin recipe directly from Julie's blog (fair is fair!). 

You will need: 

  • 1 cup whole almonds, divided
  • 3 cups old fashioned oats
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 3 tablespoons coconut oil
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon almond extract

and then follow the instructions on Julie's blog. 

Couple of tweaks I made to suit my personal preferences: 


I didn't chop my almonds too finely, barely at all. Since I was already putting whole almonds on my yogurt, including some chunkier and whole in the granola made sense. 


You can see where I left some whole, some chunky and some just broken. I did mine by putting them in a Ziploc bag and pounding them w/ the flat side of a meat tenderizing tool! I threw all of my dry ingredients in a bowl and then put the honey and coconut oil in a glass measuring cup and zapped it in the  microwave per instructions. 


Your honey / coconut oil mixture will thin when heated which makes it really easy to coat your dry mixture. 


Here's my granola spread out on a baking sheet (make sure you use one w/ a rim) before going into the oven. 

Another tweak I made was to leave mine in for a few minutes longer than the original instructions. Again, just personal preference. I wanted a darker toastiness if that makes sense, so mine was a total of about 15 minutes over the original 10. 


Golden goodness after coming out of the oven! Spread your toasted granola out on wax paper sheets to cool. Once cool, enjoy! 


Eat alone as a snack, in a bowl as cereal, or sprinkle on yogurt! Thanks Julie for a delicious and easy recipe.