The Basic Granola

Granola is just the best for snacking! It's cheap and easy to make too! I always try to mix in nuts and dried fruit which gets me snacking on an extra dose of protein, vitamins, and antioxidants. A great food for a college student who barely has time to breathe, much less eat well. Over my past year of making granola, I've gotten my method down to one simple recipe that has a lot less sugar than most. This Basic Granola can then have different spices and ingredients added in order to get fun flavors* such as Chocolate-dipped Strawberries and Cream, Maple-Cinnamon, and Almond-Blueberry. The recipe below produces a beautiful, chunky, golden-brown granola in about an hour and a half. So before my next class, I'm going to make:


The Basic Granola

preheat the oven to 250°F

3 cups oats (old-fashioned, not quick-cook*)
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup warm water
1 egg white
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract


1. Put all of the ingredients, except the oats, into a bowl and mix them together well.

2. Now add the oats and stir them using your hands, or a spoon, until they are evenly coated.

3. After lightly greasing a cookie sheet, pour all of the oats onto the sheet. Spread the oats across the pan in a thin, even layer.

4. Place the cookie sheet on a middle rack in  the preheated oven and allow to bake for about 1 hour (read step 5). Don't stir the granola while it is baking, because that will keep it from clumping together.

5. As it gets to 50 minutes of cooking time, start checking the granola frequently (every two minutes) to make sure it doesn't go past just barely golden-brown. The trick with granola is that it dries out and burns very quickly after reaching the golden-brown point. It's okay to bake the granola for longer than 1 hour if it's not golden-brown enough for your liking, just be very attentive to it changing color (today this recipe took me 1 hour and 20 minutes, but usually it just takes 1 hour). Also, if I'm not sure if the granola is brown enough, I always choose to take it out even if it's a bit lighter colored because it usual browns a bit on the sheet as it cools.

6. Once you've decided to take the granola out of the oven after about an hour, let it cool completely on the pan.

7. Now comes the fun part! The granola should be stuck together in one big sheet (because of the egg white) and you now get to break it apart into whatever size chunks you like!

Store in the cupboard in a closed container and it will last about 2 weeks.

Happy snacking!

* Fun flavor variations to The Basic Granola recipe with pop up occasionally on CCCuizine, so keep an eye out!