How to Make Healthier Homemade Granola (that still tastes great!)

If you are looking to make granola at home that tastes amazing, but can be eaten daily without feeling you’ve just eaten something too sweet and rich, look no further! At just 212 calories per 1/2 cup serving my Healthier Homemade Granola is healthier but still looks and tastes like traditional granola!

There are dozens of online recipes for homemade granola, but I believe this recipe does a stellar job of balancing the nuances of what makes granola so beloved, to yield a delicious homemade granola that is objectively healthier and provides you with a granola you can eat daily without breaking the calorie bank and without feeling like you just finished some candy when you are through. Mind you, I’m sure there are plenty of you who don’t care about these nuances! I understand. You should go make my Chocolate Raspberry Granola instead (though it’s pretty “healthy” too). This recipe is for those of you who want to enjoy homemade granola, but either find it too sweet or don’t indulge because granola seems too caloric, fatty, and sweet to be eaten regularly. For the latter, I’ve done the research and picked apart the nutrition of dozens of granola recipes with the word “healthy” in the title, to understand how granola is made and how we all attempt to make it healthy (see my Low Sugar Granola Recipe). It’s become an obsession, frankly, and it’s time for me to move on, but before I do, here it is in all its splendor, how to make healthier homemade granola that still tastes great, with all kinds of tips and ideas about how to do that, why to do that, and a simple recipe for you to make it happen.

What makes Granola so caloric?

Granola typically contains rolled oats, nuts, seeds, dried fruits, sweeteners, and butter or oil. The ingredients are baked in the oven and become delightfully sweet and crunchy. This creates a nutrient-dense food that is also very sweet and high in fat. So, while it is full of nutrition, it is also very caloric (from the healthy and other fats) and can be overly sweet. Therefore, I simply wanted to develop a recipe for healthier homemade granola that clocks in at close to 200 calories for 1/2 cup, reducing the fat and sugar as much as possible while maintaining as much protein as possible. I also wanted it to still look and taste like granola! I felt if I could do this, I could feel great about eating a serving regularly, for breakfast, a snack, or dessert, following the tenets of the Mediterranean Diet Food Pyramid, and I think I’ve succeeded. What’s more, I think you can enjoy this granola every bit as much, if not more than what you’ve eaten in the past.

How is this Granola Healthier than other Homemade Granola Recipes?

I compared many recipes for granola, not to “one up” any other recipe, but to gather data on what the nutrition breakdown is for homemade granola in general since I love it so much. I also know how good oatmeal is for our heart health, and was determined to find a way to include granola in my diet for this reason. There are reliable standards set for what makes food healthy, and here is how I used those standards to modify this recipe to be healthier:

• Calories – This recipe contains 212 calories per half cup. Even if 1 cup was eaten for a meal, that would be 424 calories, which sets one up to eat within the daily recommended calorie range (i.e. daily calorie range divided by three meals plus a snack). Since it contains oil and sweeteners, granola can easily become very caloric depending on how it is made.
• Sugar – This recipe contains 6 grams of sugar per half cup. This is just about 25% of the recommended amount of 25 grams of sugar per day for a woman (less than 20% of the recommended amount for men).
• Fat – This recipe contains 11 grams of fat per half cup. There are different amounts of daily fat recommended, so my approach was to reduce the fat to make the recipe less calorically dense.

Tips for How to Make Homemade Granola Healthier

• Reduce the oil (eliminate butter) – butter adds flavor to a lot of granola recipes, but I’m using heart-healthy olive oil instead to reduce the saturated fat (it would be eliminated if it wasn’t for the coconut). Where most recipes include 1/4-1/2 of oil, this recipe only calls for 2 tablespoons, after much testing. I thought 3 was the magic number, as used in my Low Sugar Olive Oil Granola, and it was close, but 2 moved the needle in the way I wanted.
• Reduce the sweetener -I was tempted to stick with just maple syrup as many recipes do. People like to say maple syrup is healthier, and it is a bit lower on the glycemic index but it’s still an added sugar. I paired it with a small amount of brown sugar to round out the flavor profile and resisted the urge to make the granola a Maple Granola. Any less sweetener, I believe would remove the granola sweetness we love. I won’t use artificial sweeteners.
• Reduce the amount of, and chop nuts/seeds – This is a double-edged sword because the almonds, pumpkin seeds, and coconut flakes are full of nutrition, healthy fats, and fiber but calories are calories, so I reduced the amount, and chopped them roughly, instead of leaving them whole, so they would distribute throughout the granola more.
• Remove dried fruit – As seen in the feature photo above this granola can be eaten with fresh fruit instead of dried fruit. Because dried fruit is a condensed food, it packs more calories and natural sweeteners overall.
• Add egg whites – I’ve used egg whites to coat potatoes for a healthier version of baked fries and thought they could help the granola clump more, help add crunch as it did in the baked fries I made, and at the same time, help maintain the protein content of the granola. I started with adding 2 but landed on adding 3 egg whites for more of an effect. Don’t worry, they don’t scramble or show up white, they bake right into the mixture.

Ingredients

Above: A short list of ingredients is all that is needed to pull this granola together.

Method + Timing

Above: 1. After chopping the nuts/seeds, mix in with oats, and add in salt. 2. Meanwhile, on the stove melt the oil, brown sugar, and maple syrup over low heat, just long enough for the sugar to melt. It takes seconds.

Above: 1. Pour the liquid ingredients over the ingredients and mix thoroughly. 2. After distributing the warm liquid ingredients, drizzle over the egg whites and mix in thoroughly.

Above: Spread the mixture out on a parchment-lined sheet pan with sides (ideally). Bake for 30 minutes, until nicely browned, at 300. At about 20 minutes, toss the granola a bit to ensure even baking. See the tip about getting “crunchy clumps” below.

Tips for Making Healthy Granola That’s Delicious!

• Egg Whites – As mentioned above, they help bind the ingredients and add crunch. It’s really important to use a silicone spatula (or fork if you don’t have one) to thoroughly distribute the egg whites throughout the mixture, mixing and pressing down, not just lightly stirring in a circle. This will ensure even distribution and an even texture, clumps, and crunch throughout.
• Oil/Sweetener – As mentioned I like the flavor mix of brown sugar and maple syrup. Here too, it is important to thoroughly and evenly distribute the oil/sweetener liquid mixture into the granola ingredients. This ensures that all of the granola ends up coated, with flavor.
• Salt – You can certainly add more salt, but because this granola recipe is not overly sweet or fatty, I find less salt was needed to give it that great mix of salty-sweet. I also fully support sprinkling a bit of flake salt (finishing salt) over the warm pan of granola when you take it out of the oven. These days it seems most people love that sweet salty mix.
• Nuts/Seeds – Including both pumpkin seeds and almonds and coconut flakes creates a nice texture. I do not include sunflower seeds, chia seeds, or flax seeds, because I find they are so small they get caught in your teeth a lot. And without as much sugar/fat, there would be less for them to cling to.

Customize the Granola

• Vanilla Extract – you could add a teaspoon to the liquid ingredients before adding into other ingredients.
• Dried Fruit – if you want to add dried fruit, be sure to add it after the granola is baked, otherwise it will get too dried and hard. Consider goji berries which are less sweet than other dried fruits and full of antioxidants.
• Freeze-Dried Fruit – this is a GREAT addition to healthy granola! I love this brand of freeze-dried raspberries (not an affiliate link) and buy it locally. The fruit is fresh tasting, full of flavor, and crunchy, without the concentrated sugar and sweetness of dried fruit. It also maintains most of the original bright color of the fruit, and there are no added seed oils like many dried fruits have.
• Spices – I love adding Chai spices to this granola. If you don’t have all the specific chai spices on hand, this mix worked well for me: 2 tsp cinnamon, sprinkles each of five-spice powder, white pepper, allspice, and cardamom.

Serving + Storing

• I’m not sure I need to tell you how to enjoy eating granola. The cool thing about this recipe is that it works as a healthy sweet or dessert as well as breakfast or a snack.
• Breakfast – I forgot how good granola is with milk and fresh fruit! This is a nice change since I’ve been eating it with yogurt for years.
• Snack – A handful of this granola as is, makes a great grab-and-go snack.
• Dessert – Add a few chocolate chips to a half cup of granola for dessert, or better yet, it makes an awesome topping for ice cream. Once I tried that, there was no going back.
• Storing – I like to store it on the counter in a glass container. If you are less likely to develop a daily granola habit, you can store it in the freezer for when the urge strikes you.

Homemade Granola Recipe Nutritional Comparison:

Calories	Fat g.	Protein g.	Sugar g.
212	11	6	6
230	12	6	11
238	15	5	7
251	12	4	11
295	15	6	15
323	17	6	20
366	16	6	29
420	25	8	21
425	21	12	11