I am not really a cereal person. At least not in the morning. Cereal is a great late night snack, but breakfast? I would much rather have something warm like toast and bacon. Cold cereal is just not a motivator to get me out of bed – with one exception – a perfect homemade granola. And of course a delicious cup of artisan coffee (we just got a monthly subscription to Ruby and are LOVING it). After trying a slew of granola recipes, I have landed on this one as my favorite go-to.

INGREDIENTS:
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup slivered almonds
1 cup cashews (my preference is to roughly chop them, but on afternoons like mine today when you are feeling lazy, just leave them whole)
3/4 cup shredded coconut (I prefer unsweetened, but sweetened works great too)
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup (the real stuff please)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 teaspoon salt

Ice cold milk or plain yogurt for serving

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
In a large bowl, combine the oats, nuts, coconut, and brown sugar, maple syrup, oil, and salt. Stir well.

Pour onto large sheet pan. Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes-ish to achieve an even color.
Remove from oven and transfer into a large bowl.

I let mine cool and then store it in a large ziplock bag, where I have never had it last longer than a week, but it would probably easily keep at least a month.

Note: I am sure you could easily make all sorts of modifications based on your nut preferences, level of sweetness you like, adding dried fruit etc. But, for me, this combination is quite perfect.

Recipe based on the brilliant Alton Brown’s version here.