Oh, granola. You can eat it for breakfast, you can eat it for dessert. You could even bring it on a hike for long-term fuel.
A savvy cook can whip up granola with whatever she has on hand, making it one of the most versatile recipes around. The nuts, dried fruits, spices, and seeds can all be tailored depending on what you like and what you have.
This flax granola recipe came out of one such kitchen experiment with a recipe from the trusty old Joy of Cooking. The recipe is a treasure trove of nutritious goodies with a little help from maple syrup and pumpkin pie spice.
Here’s why I love it.
Fewer oats, more seeds
Oats are a granola staple. If I ever see a granola without them, it doesn’t quite seem like granola to me, more like trail mix. But as much as I love oats, I don’t like them to take over my granola. Rather than fill my plate with cereal grains, I try to balance it with seeds. This makes for more complex flavor and diverse nutrition. I’ve used sesame seeds and flax meal, but you could also use millet or sunflower seeds.
Longer bake time, lower oven temp
I’m sure some prefer chargrilled cereals, but certainly not me. Recently, I’ve made granola from a recipe with an oven temp that was simply too high. The pecans were like charcoal bricks!
I followed the Joy of Cooking’s recommendation and it worked perfectly. I pre-toasted just the oats for 15 minutes, which made them just crispy enough to avoid soaking up the oil. Then I baked the whole mixture in a 300 degree oven for a whopping 45 minutes!
A whole lot of flax
I added a whole cup of wheat germ and a half a cup of ground flax to this recipe. I love the nutty flax flavor. One half-cup portion has over 6 grams of fiber and 20% of the iron you need in a day. Don’t mind if I do.
The house smelled like fall for hours today as this baked! Hope you like it as much as I do.
Nutty Granola with Raisins and Flax
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Yield: 20 1/2-cup servings 1x
- Category: breakfast, snack
- Method: baking
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
Chock full of healthy nuts and seeds, this granola has a warm, toasty flavor. Mmm…fall has arrived!
Ingredients
- 3 cups oats
- 1 heaping cup chopped walnuts
- 1 heaping cup chopped pecans
- 1/2 cup sesame seeds
- 1 cup wheat germ
- 1/2 cup flaxseed meal
- 1/2 cup coconut oil
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups raisins
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 Fahrenheit. Spread oats across two baking sheets and toast for 15 minutes, stirring the oats halfway through.
- While the oats are toasting, mix the nuts, sesame seeds, wheat germ, and flaxseed meal together in a large mixing bowl. In a small saucepan, heat coconut oil, maple syrup, and pumpkin pie spice. Whisk just until the pumpkin pie spice is incorporated and the coconut oil has melted. Set aside.
- When the oats have toasted, remove them from the oven and lower the oven temperature to 300 Fahrenheit.
- Add oats to the nut mixture. Pour the oil mixture and salt over the oats and stir until incorporated.
- Spread the mixture back onto the baking sheets and return to the oven. Bake for 45 minutes, stirring the mixture once after 15 minutes and a second time after 30 minutes. For the last 15 minutes, check on the mixture every five minutes to ensure your granola doesn’t burn.
- Let cool and stir in the raisins.
- Store in airtight containers. The granola should keep for a week on the counter and a month in the fridge.
Keywords: granola, flax, flaxseed, vegan, breakfast, cereal, nuts, seeds, health food, vegetarian