Homemade Peanut Butter Granola | Vegan, Gluten-Free, Peanut-Free Option

This homemade peanut butter granola is a delicious and healthy breakfast for Wheatless Wednesday!

Have you ever thought of making granola? I recently started making my own granola. I’m not quite sure why I waited so long, because it’s really simple to make, you can control what goes into it (most commercial granola and cereal contains so many additives, as well as corn syrup/fructose), and save you a lot of money too! It can be great for a quick weekday breakfast, it tastes delicious with almond milk or you can sprinkle it on top of yogurt or smoothies. Yummy! Great for kids and adults too.

What’s wrong with Commercial Cereal?

I read recently in the book Sugar, Fat, Salt, written by the investigative reporter Michael Moss, that most commercial cereal contain over 40% of sugar! Isn’t that crazy?! And kids’ cereal are the worst! It’s like eating unhealthy cookies! Tons of sugar, no fibre, and no nutrition. It’s basically cardboard covered in sugar to which they need to add synthetic vitamins in order to pass as “food”. It’s not to say there aren’t good brands out there (I have seen a few), but I stopped eating store-bought cereal a while ago because I think it’s way too processed, on top of all the unknown additives, and the overuse of sugar. But, once in a while, it’s a nice treat, so I started making my own. (I do occasionally buy a box of natural/organic cereal, maybe once a year, and I usually find it way too sweet! haha)

So I made a big batch of this homemade granola recently and stored it in a large glass container in the pantry. It easily keeps fresh for 3-4 weeks, so that’s a great return with not a lot of time investment! 😉

Enjoy!

ECP xo

(for more info about the sugar content in commercial cereal, check out this report from EWG.org)

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Homemade Peanut Butter Granola

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: European

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Servings: 4 cups

A Homemade Peanut Butter Granola for Wheatless Wednesday breakfast. This is vegan, gluten-free and has a peanut-free option.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup organic oat flakes (although oat is naturally gluten-free, if you are severely allergic to gluten, buy ones that say certified gluten-free on the package, as some oat flakes can be mixed with wheat)
• 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds raw, unsalted
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds raw, unsalted
• 1 Tbsp flaxseeds
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 2 Tbsp raisins
• 1/4 cup puffed quinoa
• 3 Tbsp maple syrup
• 3 Tbsp raw organic honey (liquid) For vegan option, use extra peanut butter and maple syrup
• 1/4 cup natural peanut butter

Peanut-Free Option: The peanut butter can be substituted with almond butter or sunflower seed butter

Instructions

1. Turn oven on to 400F.
2. Simply put all the dry ingredients in a medium-size mixing bowl, and mix.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients (honey, maple syrup and peanut butter) and mix well with a fork, making sure everything is covered.
4. Put on a small parchment-lined cookie sheet or square pan (9 x 9") and pack the mixture by pressing it hard with your hands.
5. Bake in oven at 400F for 25-30 minutes, or until it starts looking nice and golden.
6. Remove from oven and let it cool down, then remove using the parchment paper. By moving the parchment paper around, the granola will naturally break off, creating some smaller chunks.
7. Wait until it is completely cooled down before putting into an airtight container.
8. Keep in the pantry for 3-4 weeks.

Note: I do not believe anyone should worry about counting calories, but here is the nutritional information for one serving
Calories: 478kcal | Fat: 18g | Saturated fat: 2g | Sodium: 80mg | Potassium: 455mg | Carbohydrates: 71g | Fiber: 8g | Sugar: 28g | Protein: 12g | Vitamin C: 0.4% | Calcium: 55% | Iron: 3.3%