Crumbly Blueberry Almond Granola

I’ve been a fan of Whole Foods’ blueberry granola for quite a while… and whenever I find a food I love, I am always tempted to make my own version. I finally remembered to pick up some dried blueberries on my weekly grocery trip and had the rest of the ingredients on hand. I made this super easy and quick recipe by throwing together a bunch of the ingredients on the back label of the container, as well as, a few other key ingredients and let it bake while I was working at home today. Multi-tasking at its finest.

Ingredients

• 5-8 tbsp melted butter, canola oil, or coconut oil*
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 2-3 tablespoons brown sugar, packed*
• 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/3 cup wheat germ
• 1/4 cup flaxseeds
• 1/3-1/2 cup almonds
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4-6 oz dried blueberries

* I used 5 tablespoons of butter, and mine turned out more crispy and less clumpy. If you want larger chunks of granola, I would use more butter/oil and brown sugar.

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, stir together butter (or oil), honey and brown sugar.
3. Then mix in the oats, sunflower seeds, and cinnamon.
4. Pour the mixture onto a 13 x 18 baking sheet.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes.
6. Stir in the wheat germ, flaxseeds, almonds, almond extract, and vanilla extract.
7. Bake for 10 more minutes or until golden brown.
8. Remove from oven and immediately stir in the dried blueberries.
9. Allow the mixture to cool completely before storing.

Makes about 5 1/2 cups granola. UPDATE: I made this recipe again and used less butter (about 4 tbsp), less oats (about 2 cups), more brown sugar (1/4 cup), and instead of stirring in the blueberries at the end, I added them to the mixture. This time it clumped quite a bit more. I think part of the reason it clumped more was because I let it cool before I stirred it. When I make this again, I think I will add in some Uncle Sam cereal to mix it up a bit, rather than having just oats. Regardless, it turned out fantastic, and is the perfect slightly sweet topping for yogurt, ice cream (or frozen yogurt), cottage cheese, smoothies, and even oatmeal!