I finally found a granola I consider to actually be healthy – wahoo! I have not bothered with making homemade granola in the past because, after checking ingredients of the one I like from the health food store, I didn’t think I could improve much to make it much healthier because all the homemade ones I had come across still had tons and tons of sugar in them.
But not this one 
As most of you know, I try to keep things pretty healthy in most of my cooking. I like to go all out as far as desserts but I figure so long as those are not part of daily life, we’re doing pretty good (and no I do not usually eat much of the cakes I bake every week, I just enjoy making them, I try a couple bites for taste testing purposes and that’s about it. That’s why I typically make small cakes.)
Generally, I try to avoid having sugar as part of our diet. I can’t say I am super successful but we do the best we can right?
Granola is a HUGE staple in our house. I don’t buy cereal so on hectic school mornings sometimes the granola is a total life saver. We love it with homemade yogurt and raw honey drizzled over it or with just milk, but I also use it to make granola bars or sprinkle it on ice cream or pancakes.
We love granola around here.
So finding a healthy, no sugar version is something that is important to me. So when I found this recipe from The Paper Mama the other day, I was ecstatic and hustled to the kitchen as fast as I could to make a batch.
The smell of it baking in the oven was completely intoxicating. It even wafted all the way out to the garage and my poor husband thought I was baking him a pie….
Not so much. He is not a huge granola fan so this was a big let down for him.
But the kids were excited 
This granola is not at all the sweet type you are likely used to, but it has amazing flavor, is healthy AND what I have been doing is drizzling our daily dose of local raw honey over it and it is fantastic like that.
- 7 cups old fashioned oats
- 1½ cups of slivered almonds or chopped pecans
- ½ cup shelled sunflower seeds
- 1½ cups unsweetened shredded coconut
- 3 Tablespoons of cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg
- ⅛ teaspoon ground ginger
- 3 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
- 1½ cups of no sugar added applesauce
- ¼ cup honey
- Preheat your oven to 275˚.
- In a large mixing bowl combine all the dry ingredients.
- In another smaller mixing bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Then add the wet to the dry and toss until the granola mixture is well coated. Use your hands and get dirty for best results. If the mixture seems to dry, you can add more applesauce but you want everything just coated, not soaking wet.
- Spread the mixture evenly on rimmed baking sheets, I used 3 sheets but how many you use will depend on the size, you want the granola about ½ inch thick or so.
- Bake the granola in the oven for about 40-50 minutes, tossing every 10 minutes so it browns evenly.
- Once sufficiently dry, remove from the oven and allow to cool completely on the trays.
- Once cool, store in a sealable container like a large mason jar.
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