Homemade granola ingredients
Making homemade granola is super easy and costs half as much per batch compared to brand name granola. It takes 45 minutes (including cooking time) to make a batch that will last you two weeks. Here’s my recipe.
Ingredients
6 c. whole oats
1 c. chopped walnuts
1 c. chopped almonds
1/2 c. sunflower seeds, unsalted
3 Tbsp. brown sugar or honey
3-4 Tbsp. canola oil
1 c. raisins
1 c. chopped dried fruit (I like apricots and apples)
Preheat oven to 325. Mix oats and nuts and spread between two 9 x 13 brownie pans or trays. Mixture should not be more than 1-inch deep. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven. Mix the sugar and oil and sprinkle over the oats, stirring to spread. Stir in dried fruit. Let cool completely before storing in an air-tight container. Makes 10 cups, or about 40 ounces of granola.
A 12-ounce bag of Bear Naked granola sells for $6 on Yummy.com (admittedly, this is one of the more expensive brands of granola). I spent about $8.50 to make 40 ounces. I converted the recipe amounts from cups to ounces using the packages’ gram totals and searching online for the gram to ounce conversion of each ingredient. Who knew the stoichiometry I learned in high school chemistry would be so useful as a blogger?
Bear Naked granola = $6 for12 ounces = $.50 per ounce
Homemade granola = $8.50 for 40 ounces = $.21 per ounce
So it’s more than twice as expensive to buy brand name granola. Plus, I’m betting my recipe has much, much less sugar. Homemade granola is even cheaper if you add fewer fruit and nuts, but then it doesn’t taste as good. My other favorite frugal recipes include this fresh strawberry dessert, and this homemade hummus recipe. What’s your favorite frugal recipe?
