I’ve been making muesli quite literally my entire life. It was such a lovely ritual in my family growing up. Over the years, I’ve adapted the recipe a little. You can really experiment with the ratios of the ingredients to create the perfect mix of flavours that you enjoy. To get that golden crunch, I roast the oats in the oven with olive oil. Sometimes I’ll add more or less dried fruit if I’m really trying to cut down even natural sugar. But this is generally a wholesome filling way to start your day with no refined sugar or artificial flavouring. Granola can be quite expensive these days when it’s done up in pretty packaging so I prefer to make large quantities and it ends up being much more cost effective. It’s an easy recipe to make with children as there’s basically just a lot of mixing.
I eat muesli each morning with natural yoghurt. You have to be careful with plain yoghurt because often they make it with cream or put sugar or vanilla flavouring. Good healthy yoghurt should have nothing in the ingredient list but yoghurt!
I also find this muesli and yoghurt with fruit is a great little afternoon snack if you feel yourself weakening and craving a chocolate bar or something unhealthy.
INGREDIENTS:
500 grams OATS
GROUND CLOVES (a few shakes or a teaspoon or two depending on how much you like the flavour)
CINNAMON (as much you prefer, I add quite a lot – about 30grams)
approx. 1/4-1/2 cup OLIVE OIL
125 grams DESICCATED COCONUT (you may prefer to use shredded coconut but I like this finer coconut as it coats everything nicely and creates an overall subtle chewy texture)
200 grams ALMONDS (I like to buy the almonds with their skin on rather than blanched almonds because the skin is full of antioxidants)
200 grams MIXED LINSEED/FLAXSEED, PUMPKIN SEEDS, SUNFLOWER SEEDS
250 grams DRIED APRICOTS
125 grams SULTANAS
METHOD:
- Begin by preheating your oven to medium-hot, around 180 degrees C or 350 degrees F.
- Shake some ground cloves and cinnamon over your oats and roughly mix in the spices with your fingertips while smoothing out the oats evenly on a large baking tray with baking paper.
- Drizzle the oats with olive oil, as much you need to lightly coat the oats but not have any excess oil run to the corners of the tray. Pop into the oven to turn golden.
- Lay coconut out on another baking tray to make use of the oven being hot. If you don’t have room in your oven, you could also toast your coconut in a large frying pan. Just be sure to watch it carefully as it goes from white to golden VERY fast!
- In a frying pan, toast your almonds until they are just lightly golden and warm to touch. Leave to cool.
- At this point, your coconut will be done so leave it out to cool so it’s not too hot to mix later. Your oats should need a fair bit longer in the oven to really take on colour.
- Chop dried apricots into small pieces and add into a big mixing bowl. You might think about making the muesli directly in the jar it will live in but sometimes this means you can’t really give it a thorough mix.
- Your almonds should now be cool enough to chop into rough pieces and you can take the oats out of the oven to cool.
- To the mixing bowl of apricots, add linseed, sunflowers seeds and pumpkin seeds, sultanas, chopped almonds, toasted coconut, and finally the roasted oats. Mix well and then store in an airtight container when cool. *Although, this past week, we kept the muesli out in the mixing bowl and it was still super crunchy and delicious even without being sealed because everything is toasted. There you are – you now have delicious muesli that will fill you up, keep you sustained throughout the day and help you kick your sugar cravings if you’re someone like me with a sweet tooth!