Whip up a batch of homemade granola this weekend. Tastier and much more fun than the bagged brands you find at the store, granola lets you chef it up with your choice of base, premium mix-ins, and preferred sweetener. Fresh granola still warm from the oven feels elegant enough for a Sunday brunch, but its leftovers turn into a decadent topping for yogurt and oatmeal during the week. You can even eat it by the fistful as a mid-day snack.
If you are making granola yourself, choose ingredients with flavors that stand out beyond the blend. Simple, minimally processed add-ins should steal the spotlight and don’t require excessive sweeteners to taste delicious: This is the time to break out the fancy maple syrup and shelve the imitation vanilla in favor of the real stuff.
This sorghum and pecan granola celebrates pecan season's bounty, and its toasty, earthy flavors feel perfect for a cool fall morning. But we love the edge of bourbon it gets from the pecans and syrup.
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Spread pecans evenly on a baking sheet and toast in oven for 10 minutes. Let cool.
In a large bowl, combine toasted pecans (whole or broken up), oats, pepitas, coconut flakes, brown sugar, and sea salt. Stir vanilla into olive oil and fold both into oat mixture. (Clean hands are the best way to toss this together.) Add sorghum and toss until combined. Whisk egg whites and gently fold into mixture (this helps to clump the granola). Spread granola on two rimmed baking sheets and bake for 30 minutes. Rotate baking sheets and continue to bake until granola starts to deepen in color, about 15 minutes more. Remove from oven and let cool. Toss gently with dried cherries.
