Granola was – and still is – believed to be a “healthy” snack made popular in the late 1960’s-1970’s during the hippie movement. This is Homemade One Pan Granola method from my mom jotted down in a vintage 1980’s La Leche League cookbook.

There are so many brands of granola out there. Just take a quick look while perusing grocery store shelves, you can surely find one that satisfies your flavor palette and meets your ingredient checklist (i.e. sugar content, calories, fat, etc.). Over the last few years, I owned a wholesale all-natural snack food business. I developed and sold various versions of granola in grocery and health food and now I’m sharing my basic recipe with you. 

When making granola you always want to use all-natural ingredients in their whole form. You can always chop into smaller pieces depending on the texture you like in your granola. From healthy to sweet, to soft or crunchy, putting together granola depends on what you have on hand and the style you prefer.  

Assembling Vintage One Pan Granola:

1. Start with whole grain OATS

2. Add in a few GRAINS such as wheat germ, oat bran, or flax

3. Add in some NUTS like almonds, cashews, walnuts, pecans either roughly chopped or in their whole form

4. Add SWEETENER use a combination of sweeteners such as sugar, brown sugar, maple syrup, molasses or sorghum

5. Add FLAVOR add in spices, vanilla, fruit juice, cider or whole fruit puree

6. Add DRIED FRUIT such as chopped apricots, raisins, cranberries or cherries

There are many ways to eat granola such as as for a snack, or for breakfast on top of yogurt and fruit parfait, or to make a batch of granola bars.

To make granola bars: In a saucepan combine 1/2 c. peanut butter, 1/4 c. honey, 2 T. butter, and 2 T. brown sugar and heat until it boils. Then add 2 1/2 c. prepared granola into the hot mixture and pour into greased 8×8 pan. Add 1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips on the top. Chill for 1 hour and cut into bars.