healthy chocolate granola

This recipe was created because I was experiencing a major oat surplus (I went a little crazy at the bulk bins.) What better thing to do with extra oats than make granola? I wasn’t planning on making granola so I just used ingredients I found around the kitchen. It’s pretty hard to mess up granola– all you need is a good base of oats and some other crunchy things and mix it up with something to bind it all together. For this recipe I used coconut oil and honey. Peanut butter and maple syrup would also be great.  I already had some mixed nuts and chia seeds so I threw those in too. I used my other granola recipe as a base and then had the idea of mixing in some cocoa powder to make it chocolatey. Let me tell you– it smelled like I was baking brownies when I put the granola in the oven. So good! I didn’t really measure any of the ingredients (nothing new here) and just tasted the mixture as I went along. It’s easy to make as much or as little granola as you want so the measurements below can just be used as a baseline. This proves that you can make some delicious and healthy granola with just a few ingredients that you probably already have lying around. This makes the perfect snack, topping for smoothies, chia pudding, oats, and yogurt, or by itself with milk!

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Time: 25 minutes
Active: 10 minutes
Serves: ~7

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Ingredients:

• rolled oats (4 cups)
• chia seeds (1/4 cup) (optional)
• nuts (1 cup)
• cinnamon (optional)
• vanilla extract (2 tablespoons)
• coconut oil (3/4 cup)
• honey (1/4 cup)
• cocoa powder (3 tablespoons)

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Supplies:

• large bowl
• baking sheet
• small pot

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Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°
2. In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients (oats, seeds, nuts, spices)
3. In a small pot, heat the liquid ingredients over low heat. Mix until the honey, coconut oil, and vanilla are melted and combined.
4. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry mixture. Mix to combined until everything is evenly coated.
5. Lay the granola out evenly on a baking sheet.
6. Bake for around 15-20 minutes or until browned and crispy, stirring every few minutes to make sure everything is evenly baked.
7. Let cool completely before placing it in a container for storage.