Granola is one end of the breakfast spectrum, with something like a humble bowl of porridge or slice of toast the other end. It’s an elite cereal. Serious business. Hell, you can easily blow upwards of £5 on a bit of granola.

That’s the same as a chicken, or half a kilogram of cheddar, or a bottle of Malbec. It’s a shame. Because I really do like granola, but I also really dislike parting with money. So, after grappling with this dilemma for a bit, I decided to turn to the classic food solution: scale it up, and make it yourself.

The good news is that it’s really easy to rustle up, and a very smug-making activity too. I’ve been eating it by the bucket load this week, with some yoghurt (Sainsburys are selling 1kg of Henna yoghurt for 70p at the moment!) and also summer fruit compote (500g of frozen summer fruit is just £1.70 at Tescos).

Scroll down beneath the recipe to see some pretty complex sums I did to show how my granola worked out at 46p/100g … almost half the average 81p/100g of supermarket granolas. WINNER!  

Granola Recipe
Makes roughly 2.5kg, ingredient pricing from Ocado

250g mixed nuts
500g mixed dried fruit
200g pumpkin seeds
100g sunflower seeds
800g jumbo oats
680 runny honey, microwaved for 20 seconds to make it extra-runny

1. Put the nuts in a sealed bag. Stamp on them a bit, or thwack them with a rolling pin to break them up.

2. Tip the nuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and jumbo oats into a big mixing bowl.

3. Pour the warm honey over everything, and then use your (clean and well-scrubbed) hands to mix it up, so that everything is all honey-sticky and delicious.

4. When making granola on this scale, then you’ll have to cook it in batches. Use a couple of trays, lined with greaseproof paper. Spread out the oaty mixture, and cook at 180C for 25 minutes. About half way through cooking, add a handful or two of the dried fruit, and mix the granola round the tray, so that it cooks on both sides.

5. When it’s cooled, break up any clumps, and then store in an airtight container.

 

The Ingredients I Used

250g Love Life mixed nuts, £2.99/250g
Brazil Nuts (40%), Almonds (25%), Hazelnuts (25%), Macadamia Nuts (10%)

500g Waitrose mixed fruit, £1.99/500g
Raisins (40%), sultanas (30%), currants (10%), dried sweetened cranberries (10%), dried apricots (4%), candied mixed peel (3%), dried sweetened pineapple (2%)

200g Waitrose Pumpkin Seeds, £1.66/200g

100g Waitrose Sunflower Seeds, 85p/100g

800g Mornflake Scottish Jumbo Oats, £2.49/1.5kg (800g/£1.32)

680g Ocado Runny Honey, £1.43/340g (£2.86/680g)

TOTAL
£11.67/2.53kg
46p/100g

Supermarket Granola Prices
Scrumshus Granola, 99p/100g
Lizi’s Granola, 99p/100g
Special K Granola, 81p/100g
Kellogs Crunchy Nut Granola, 79p/100g
Rude Health Honey and Nuts Granola, 74p/100g
Dorset Cereal Simply Nut Granola, 69p/100g
Jordan’s Super Berry Granola, 66p/100g