Sam's Kitchen
Granola
My go-to granola — super crunchy, lightly sweet, packed with nuts and seeds. The one I share whenever anyone asks. Make-ahead, and it keeps well.
Bakes ~32 min
Cool 2–3 hrs
Makes 1 big batch
Easy
Ingredients
- 4 cups rolled oats (jumbo if possible)
- 2 cups mixed nuts, chopped (raw, unsalted)
- 1½ cups mixed dried fruit, chopped (no added sweeteners)
- ½ cup chia seeds
- ½ cup flax seeds
- 1 tsp fine-grain sea salt
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ cup olive oil
- ½ cup honey
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 180 °C.
- Mix the wet ingredients (olive oil, honey, vanilla) and the dry ingredients (oats, nuts, chia, flax, salt, cinnamon) separately — hold back the dried fruit for now. Once each is well combined, mix the two together.
- Spread on a large baking tray and bake 15 min.
- Take out, toss, add the dried fruit, and bake a further 12 min.
- Take out and flatten hard all over with a spatula — this is what gives you the crunchy clusters.
- Bake a final 5 min.
- Let it rest and cool at least 2–3 hours before breaking it up.
The crunch secret: the hard flattening + the long cool are what build the clusters — don't skip the rest. Total oven time is ~32 min across three stages (15 → 12 → 5).