When you’ve grown lots of baking/cooking pumpkins, you find lots of ways to use the flesh…and the seeds. I love this recipe because it uses both the pumpkin flesh and the seeds.
This pumpkin granola is soooo flipping delicious. It never lasts more than a couple of days in our house and the house smells absolutely wonderful as it’s baking. It’s fantastic to snack on plain, eat as cereal or sprinkle on yogurt or ice cream.
If you are using your own pumpkin puree and haven’t seen my post on how to puree fresh pumpkin, you can find it here.
If you’re using your own fresh pumpkin seeds, be sure to check out my post on brining pumpkin seeds and the one on toasting pumpkin seeds.
Ingredients:
- 6 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (“quick” variety is NOT recommended for this recipe)
- 8 tablespoons (1 stick) Butter OR 4 tablespoons Butter + ¼ cup Coconut Oil OR ½ cup Coconut Oil
- 1 cup Nuts, coarsely chopped. Suggested: pecans, walnuts, almonds, pinons or blend recommended
- 1 cup plain, lightly toasted seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, etc. or a blend)
- 1/2 cup Maple Syrup OR Honey
- 1/2 cup Pumpkin
- 1 tablespoon Cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon Ginger (optional—if you don’t like ginger leave it out)
- 1/4 teaspoon Sea Salt
- 1/8 teaspoon ground Cloves (optional—if you don’t like cloves leave it out)
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
Combine all dry ingredients (oats, nuts, seeds), Cinnamon, Ginger, Ground Cloves and Sea Salt in an X-large mixing bowl. Stir and mix well until all dry ingredients are evenly distributed. Set aside.
Melt butter (or butter/coconut combo or coconut oil) until just melted and pour into small mixing bowl. Add remaining wet ingredients (maple syrup or honey and pumpkin) and mix well making sure the mixture is evenly combined and smooth.
Pour wet ingredients over dry ingredients. Stir and mix well, making sure wet ingredients are evenly distributed and coating all the dry ingredients.
Divide mixture evenly between two regular size baking sheets (or one extra large baking sheet if you have it).
Bake in 250 degree oven for approximately 2 hours, stirring every 20 – 30 minutes. If you prefer chunkier granola, be more gentle and leave larger chunks when stirring.
When time is up, remove from oven.
Cool completely, stirring periodically.
Once completely cooled, this granola should store quite well in an air tight container for up to a couple weeks (not entirely sure as it never lasts that long in our house).