Beet & Squash Granola

Instead of a granola featuring dried fruit, I was created this Beet and Squash Granola recipe featuring dried vegetables. At the time of creating this recipe, I had just been exposed to seemingly endless rows of cute London coffee shops and cafes displaying their homemade baked goods, including granola. I wanted to make my own.

And so I did. With vegetables. Beets and squash to be exact. These veggies toast up very sweet, so they’re perfect for your morning granola. Add a little spice and nut action, and you’ve just created an addictive breakfast, snack, lunch…

Beet and Squash Granola

For this granola recipe, I use roasted vegetables which toast up very sweet, so they’re perfect for your morning granola. Add a little spice and nuts, and you’ve just created an addictive breakfast or snack.

• Author: Elana
• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: 1 hour
• Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
• Yield: 4 cups 1x
• Category: Breakfast
• Method: Baking
• Cuisine: American

Scale 1x2x3x

Ingredients

• 3–4 medium sized beets, trimmed of their greens and thinly sliced into 1/8” rounds
• 1 delicata (or winter) squash (you could also use butternut)
• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats (I used Bob’s Gluten Free variety)
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1/3 cup dates, pitted and chopped
• 1/2 cup pecans
• 1/2 cup roasted pistachios
• 3/4 cup coconut flakes
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon cardamom
• 1 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
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Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 300°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Slice the delicata squash in half and remove the seeds with a spoon. Slice each half of the squash into 1/8″ inch thick pieces. Place the squash slices and the beet slices on the prepared baking sheet, but don’t crowd them! Give ’em some room to breathe.
3. Throw them in the oven and let them bake. And bake….and bake. This takes a while, as you are essentially making vegetable chips which requires baking all the water out of the veggies. Veggies have a lot of water. The whole process could take up to an hour. Keep checking on them, as smaller pieces may crisp up faster and you don’t want them to burn. Have a bowl ready to place more quickly cooked pieces.
4. Once all your veggies have “chipped,” place them in the bowl and break them up into smaller pieces with your hands. Think about what size would fit nicely on a spoon. That’s the size you should break them into.
5. Increase the oven temperature to 350°F.
6. In another bowl, combine the oats, spices and nuts. Mix in the olive oil and maple syrup and coat all the dry ingredients evenly with the wet. Spread this mixture onto a baking sheet (you can use the same one that you used for the veggies) and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
7. With five minutes left in the baking time, sprinkle the coconut flakes on top. Coconut will toast up rather quickly, so it doesn’t need much time.
8. Remove the mixture from the oven and add it to the bowl of veggie chips. At this point you can also add in the dried fruit. Mix to combine.
9. Store in an airtight container for weeks! Now you can have your vegetables for breakfast.
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Keywords: granola, homemade granola, vegetable granola