Healthy Kale Granola
The combination of kale, oats, and nuts is crunchy and satisfying. Everyone likes to munch on this as a snack – it doesn’t even seem to last until breakfast to top with yogurt, mix with fruit, or serve with milk. It’s easy to vary the nuts and the dried fruit with your favorites. - Catherine Walthers
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Ingredients
- 5 cups curly kale stripped from stalk, chopped or torn into large bite-sized pieces, rinsed and dried well
- 6 tablespoons virgin coconut oil * divided
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ cup light brown sugar
- 6 tablespoons maple syrup
- 3 cups rolled oats
- 1 cup pecans walnuts or sliced almonds
- ½ cup sunflower seeds
- ¼ cup sesame seeds
- 1 cup dried cranberries roughly chopped
- ¼ cup dried apricots chopped into 1/4-inch pieces
- ¼ cup raisins roughly chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 300 °F.
- Make sure the kale is well dried. Place the kale in a bowl and add 1 tablespoon of the coconut oil and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Knead or massage with your hands until the coconut oil is rubbed on all the leaves. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining 5 tablespoons of coconut oil, and the brown sugar, maple syrup, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. In another larger bowl, combine the oats, nuts and seeds.
- Take 2 tablespoons of the wet ingredients and combine with the kale. Rub it over the leaves. Pour the rest over the oats mixture and mix very well until incorporated and oats are completely covered.
- Line two 12 x 17-inch baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Place the oats on one, spreading them out evenly, and the kale on the other sheet. (The kale seems to crisp up better separately, but you can mix the kale and oats together and it will work.) Bake all for about 25-30 minutes, mixing 2 or 3 times to prevent the outer edges from burning, and also rotating the trays. I sometimes switch the oven setting to convection bake if the mixture doesn’t seem to be crisping up. Remove the kale when it is crispy, but not browned. Remove the oats when they are crispy or nearly crispy and before the nuts are burned. Both with get crispier once they sit on the counter to cool.
- When cooled, combine the kale with the oats. Add the dried fruit. Pack into mason jars for storage.
- Cook’s Note: I’ve switched to coconut oil instead of canola oil for making granola (though substitute canola or another vegetable oil if that is what you have.) I love the subtle flavor coconut adds, and nutritionists are recommending its healthier properties. In warmer weather, coconut oil looks like an oil; in cooler weather it tends to solidify. For this recipe, if solidified, I usually put the jar in a saucepan of hot water until it becomes liquid again. Also, if you mix it with cold maple syrup it tends to solidify again which makes it hard to coat the oats and kale, so I usually just have maple room temp or heat it up very slightly before mixing the liquid ingredients.