Cranberry Orange Granola
Sweet orange vanilla infused granola decorated with festive cranberries makes a fun breakfast cereal bowl, or topping for a yogurt snack!
Servings: 12 servings
Ingredients
- 10 cups oats
- 4 cups raw pumpkin seeds
(raw sunflower seeds
would work too)
- 4 cups raw pecans
(raw walnuts
or raw almonds
- would work too. I get all of these nuts in the linked Kirkland brand at Costco)
- Juice of 2 lemons
- 2 TB sea salt
- 4 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
- 1/2 cup avocado oil melted butter or coconut oil would work too
- Juice and zest of 5 oranges
- 1/2 cup raw honey pure maple syrup or organic pure cane sugar or coconut sugar would work too
- 1 TB vanilla extract
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
I get fresh and dried cranberries at Costco - the linked dried brand is what I get at Costco
Instructions
- Pulse the pumpkin seeds and pecans in a food processor to the sized bits you want in your granola (you could chop with a knife too). I keep mine on the smaller side since I have little ones eating it - you can leave bigger chunks if you prefer.
- Put the oats, chopped nuts and seeds, the lemon juice, and sea salt in a large mixing bowl and fill with water until it just covers the mixture. Set the bowl in a warm spot in your kitchen to soak for 8 hours. This soaking process breaks down the phytic acid in the grain, nut, and seeds for better digestion. It also makes their nutrients more available to absorb.
- After soaking, put the oat, nut, and seed mixture in a strainer to drain while you put the rest of the ingredients into a large bowl or stockpot to mix. Add the drained oat/nut/seed mixture and combine the entire granola mixture well.
- Spread the granola mixture over your dehydrator trays (I use this one) and dehydrate at 135 degrees 8-12 hours until dry. You could bake this in the oven at 250 degrees for an hour or so just stir the mixture every half hour to ensure it gets completely dried out.