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This Homemade Cinnamon Granola recipe is an easy snack idea bursting with mild sweetness and crunchy goodness. Made with oats, honey, shredded coconut, dried cranberries, cinnamon, vanilla, and nuts, this is a healthy granola recipe your family will love.
Homemade Cinnamon Granola does the heart good. Its complex variety of flavors make it taste more like a satisfying sweet treat than a hearty, health-packed snack for the whole family. Eat it by itself plain between meals, mixed in with yogurt and fresh fruit for a parfait breakfast, in your favorite yogurt bowl, or on top of your favorite ice cream for a rich and pleasantly surprising dessert.
This is a beautiful recipe because, even though there are quite a few ingredients, it comes together so simply and rapidly. Plus, you can change things up each time by adding different types of dried fruits or nuts, or using different spices and extracts! To really have some fun, toss in a handful of mini semi-sweet chocolate chips at the end of the baking period, so they just barely melt into the chunky granola pieces. Yum!
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Homemade goodness: You can customize this granola to your liking and avoid any ingredients or flavors you don’t want.
- Warm and Comforting Flavor: The addition of cinnamon adds warmth and depth of flavor to the granola, making it perfect for fall and winter months. It goes well with so many mix-ins and flavors, too.
- Healthy Grains: Oats, wheat germ, and wheat flour are full of fiber to keep you full and help with digestion.
Ingredients
- Old-fashioned Oats: For best results, don’t use Quick Cooking Oats
- Wheat Germ: you can usually find it in the cereal aisle near the oats
- Shredded Coconut: if you don’t like it, add another cup of oats
- Whole Wheat Flour
- Salt
- Cinnamon
- Water
- Coconut Oil
- Honey
- Vanilla
- Raisins or Craisins
- Nuts: you can use sliced, whole, or chopped of whichever one you like best
See the recipe card below for full information on ingredients and quantities
Popular Substitutions and Variations
- Instead of honey, you can use maple syrup (the real deal) or agave nectar.
- If you can’t have oats, barley flakes are an easy substitute.
How to Make Homemade Cinnamon Granola
Step #1. Preheat the oven, then line a baking sheet with parchment and lightly grease it.
Step #3. Spread the mixture on the prepared baking sheet then bake for 1.5 hours, stirring every 20 minutes.
Step #2. In a large bowl, combine the oats through cinnamon. In a small bowl, whisk together the water, coconut oil, honey, and vanilla. Pour the wet over the dry ingredients and stir until there are no dry spot.
Step #4. When the granola starts to turn golden, stir in the fruit and nuts. Continue cooking until it is all golden. Remove from oven and let cool. Store in an airtight container.
Recipe FAQs
Because all of the ingredients are pretty much self-preserving, granola can actually last for quite a while! Store it in a cool and dry area, like your pantry or even the fridge, in an airtight container for several months.
It sure is! Even the sweeteners, honey and vanilla extract, are natural, which makes this a great nutritious snack option, especially if you’re craving something sweet. Cinnamon has anti-inflammatory properties, and oats and nuts pack some good protein and fiber in them.
Oftentimes, it actually is cheaper to make your own granola. You’ll have to buy more ingredients at first, but you may already have a lot of ingredients needed in this recipe on hand. Over time, it makes a lot more sense for those who are budgeters to make your own large batches of granola rather than spending 12 bucks over and over again on a pretty shrimpy-sized bag from the grocery store.
Expert Tips
- Be sure to let the granola cool completely before storing. It was be slightly sticky until it is cooled and will end up in a big chunk if stored too soon.
- Keep a close eye on it at the end of the cooking time to make sure that it doesn’t burn. It can happen quickly.
- Dried fruit can get dried out or chewy if added too soon. If you don’t like the texture once the granola is finished, make a note to add it later next time.
More Granola Recipes to Consider
Granola Recipes
Homemade Granola Bars
Snacks for Kids
Crunchy Oat and Honey Granola Bars
Granola Recipes
No Bake Peanut Butter Honey Granola Bars
Healthy Snacks
8 Easy Granola Bar Recipes
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Cinnamon Granola Recipe
Ingredients
- 5 cups old-fashioned oats
- 1 cup wheat germ
- 1 cup shredded coconut, (if you don’t like it, add another cup of oats)
- 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
- Pinch of salt
- 2 tablespoons cinnamon
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
- 1 cup honey
- 2 1/2 tablespoons vanilla
- 3/4 cup raisins or craisins to taste, optional
- 1 cup nuts, you can use sliced, whole, or chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Line a big cookie sheet with parchment paper, and grease lightly.
- In a large bowl, combine your oats, wheat germ, coconut, flour, salt, and cinnamon.
- In a small bowl, whisk together your water, oil, honey, and vanilla.
- Pour the wet over the dry. Mix everything together, making sure there are no dry spots.
- Spread granola onto the prepared cookie sheet. The pan will be nice and full. Bake for about 1.5 hours total, stirring every 20 minutes to make sure everything bakes evenly. When you are stirring, don’t get too crazy because you don’t want to break up all of the clumps.
- When granola starts to turn a light golden color (about an hour into cooking), add your nuts and your dried fruit. Continue cooking, until everything is a nice golden color, taking care not to burn the nuts. The granola will still be slightly sticky when you take it out and will crisp up after it cools.
- Store in an airtight container.
Notes
- You can change up the flavor of this granola really easily by switching out the cinnamon for something like pumpkin or apple pie spice or adding other spices, like cloves, nutmeg, or all-spice, to the cinnamon.
- You can use half vanilla extract and half almond extract for a different flavor variation, too; it’s excellent.
- Keep an eye on the granola toward the end of cooking time – it can get to dark or burn really quickly.
- Granola will keep for quite a while when stored properly.
Nutrition
This post was originally published in 2010 and has been updated and rephotographed in May 2019.
Can I substitute the coconut oil with something else?
Yep, any fat/oil will work, melted butter, canola, vegetable, whatever you like.