Low Fat Christmas Fruit & Nut Granola Recipe

Lowfat Christmas Fruit & Nut Granola

I love granola, but it is so fattening I don’t eat it much. I wanted to make some for my kids, friends and family this Christmas and knew I’d eat a lot of it…..taste testing and all. ;) So I decided to make up a low fat granola recipe.

It has all the usual stuff in it plus a substitute here and there and a few additional items I thought sounded good. I made 6 pounds of it today and filled old canning jars and some new canning jars for Christmas presents.

As you can see….I ate half of one jar already! Anyway, I thought I’d share my recipe.

Mix together in a large bowl:

8 cups of rolled oats

2 cups of wheat germ

1 cup of sliced almonds

3 cups of chopped pecans (I like pecans….you can sub with walnuts or some other nut combo)

1 cup of coconut

Mix together in smaller bowl:

1 cup brown sugar

¼ cup maple Syrup

¾ cup honey

1 can of Cranberry Sauce (secret ingredient) replaces the oil and tastes awesome!

¼ cup of water

1-1/2 teaspoon salt

¾ tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Added AFTER baking:

2 cups dried cranberries, cherries or raisins

2 cups of dried papaya or apricots

¼ cup of raw sugar

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Add the smaller bowl of ingredients to the larger bowl of ingredients. Mix well. (I use my hands) This will make a large batch of granola so I bake mine in a large roasting pan. About 30 servings

Spray the roasting pan with non-stick spray. Put HALF of your granola mixture evenly into the pan and bake for 45 min stirring/turning every 15 minutes.

After 45 minutes your granola will still feel “wet”. Let it cool. As it cools it will become crunchy.

This batch does not “clump” up. That is another recipe altogether. This one is a nice cinnamon coated, lightly sweetened oats, nut and dried fruit mix that goes well with yogurt, ice cream or just for snacks.