Crunchy, chewy, nutty, and sweet. This vanilla almond butter protein granola makes a nutritious and delicious breakfast or snack!
I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve posted a recipe! But since I tend to do most of my baking/cooking/experimenting on the weekends — and I was off gallivanting in Vegas on the last one — I didn’t manage to get any good eats up for you last week. My bad. But I’ll try to make it up to you this week, okay? Okay.
Today’s recipe combines two of my current obsessions — these soft and chewy granola bars (which is a recipe I’ve made at least 20+ times), and cereal. Basically, today’s recipe is those bars in cereal form. In other words, granola…
Almond Butter Protein Granola, to be more exact. And if you’re wondering why I couldn’t just crumble up one of my bars and enjoy it with some milk or yogurt, the answer is because the texture is completely different — which is kind of a big deal to a texture freak like me. Whereas the bars are softer and chewier, the granola is denser and crunchier… but not to the point where you feel like you’re in danger of cutting your gums on a jagged edge. Just crunchy enough.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m super picky when it comes to textures — sometimes even pickier than I am with tastes. When I want something crunchy, it has to be the right kind of crunchy; when I want something chewy, it has to be the right kind of chewy — catch my drift? I also prefer more complex textures over simple uniform ones, which is why every bowl of cereal I eat has around 3 or 4 different cereals mixed into it. But that’s a whole other story for a whole other day. Back to today’s granola. Did I mention it’s loaded with clusters?
It’s also a texture freak’s dream. The individual oat/granola pieces are crunchy, while the honey/almond butter/protein coating is slightly chewy — it’s basically the best of both worlds. Oh, and it doesn’t taste half bad either 😉
It’s also gluten-free, made without any refined sugars or unhealthy oils, and has a nice little protein boost thanks to the addition of protein powder — which you can easily omit if you don’t have any on hand; but it does add to both the nutrition and flavour profile. You can also easily make it vegan by replacing the honey with maple syrup and using a plant-based protein powder and dairy-free chocolate chips (I like Enjoy Life brand). And if you don’t like chocolate chips, you can sub those out for raisins… just be sure to add them after baking so you don’t end up with little burnt raisin turds in your cereal. Not that I would know or anything.
But hey, look! Delicious granola! Enjoy 😀
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Vanilla Almond Butter Protein Granola
- Total Time: 26 mins
- Yield: 2 cups 1x
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup almond butter
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2 cup rolled oats
- 1 serving vanilla protein powder (optional)
- 2 Tbsp. ground flax
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/3 cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325F and spray a baking sheet with cooking spray or line it with parchment paper or a non-stick baking mat. Set aside.
- In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, add almond butter and honey, stirring until the almond butter is melted and fully combined with the honey. Stir in vanilla extract.
- Remove from heat and add oats, protein powder (if using), flax, cinnamon, and salt. Mix well and use a spatula to ensure that all of the oats are well coated.
- Spread the granola mixture over a baking sheet, leaving as many clusters as you want, and bake for 8 minutes. Remove from oven, stir, and bake for another 8 minutes, or until lightly golden.
- Let cool completely before adding chocolate chips and transferring to a storage container. The granola will still be slightly soft when it comes out of the oven, but it will harden up as it sits at room temperature and cools.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 16 mins
Keywords: almond butter granola, healthy granola, protein granola, vanilla, recipe
Hello, This looks amazing, I made this last week and it is delicious!
★★★★★
This definitely looks delicious. Thanks for sharing it. I used true elements baked granola to try this recipe and it gave a perfect texture like how it shows here. You should definitely check them out.
★★★★★
hi,
This looks amazing. Do you know the calories for this?
I made this last week and it was AMAZING. tasted like cookies and there were huge clusters uf crunchy oatmeal!
…only to find out today that happened because I did it wrong, I accidentally doubled the amount of maple sirup and almond butter.
I’m trying the original recipe today but it looked much more crumbly and powdery, and wouldn’t really stick together. It’s in the oven right now, so we’ll see.
I’m definitely going to make protein cookies with this recipe though, and will be doubling maple sirup and almond butter for that. It might not really be healthy enough for breakfast like that, but some cookies won’t hurt, right?! 🤤
Good recipe if you omit the protein powder. But adjustments in the consistency of the base mixture are necessary because the protein powder makes the mixture is too thick :/
★★★★
I made this last week and it is delicious! 🙂 However, I’m a big fan of clusters and it wasn’t “clustery enough” for me– any ideas for making the granola stick together and cluster even more? Just add more almond butter and honey or something else?