Description
Chocolate granola has melted chocolate chips that form delicious clusters of crunchy granola. Honey roasted peanuts add more crunch. This granola is great anytime you want a sweet treat.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 3 3/4 cups old fashioned rolled oats
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup natural peanut butter
- 1/4 cup coconut oil
- 3/4 cup pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Stir ins
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
- 3/4 cup honey roasted peanuts (or use salted roasted peanuts)
- flaky sea salt (I like Maldon sea salt)
Instructions
- Prepare: Preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Mix the dry ingredients: to a large mixing bowl add the oats, cocoa powder, cinnamon, and salt. Stir until everything is well combined.
- Melt the wet ingredients: To a small sauce pot add the peanut butter, coconut oil, and maple syrup. Heat on medium heat, stirring constantly, just until the coconut oil is melted and the peanut butter is in a more liquid state, remove from the heat. Stir in the vanilla.
- Combine: To the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients add the peanut butter mixture, stirring until everything is wet and well coated.
- Bake: Transfer the granola to an extra large rimmed baking sheet (or 2 medium sized sheets), spread out into a mostly even layer. Bake on the center rack of your oven for 10 minutes. Remove and toss, bake another 5 minutes, and remove and toss again, bake another 5 minutes – this prevents burning. The granola should seem dry when done baking. Turn off the oven.
- Add the chocolate chips: Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the granola. Pop the granola back into the oven that is now off for 1 to 2 minutes, just until the chocolate chips have melted. Remove from the oven, sprinkle on the peanuts and then gently toss the granola just a few times. The idea is to create clumps of granola with the melted chocolate, you don’t want to mix it up completely, just enough to get those beautiful chocolate-y clumps YUM!
- Sprinkle with salt: Sprinkle the granola with a little bit of the flaky sea salt, especially trying to get it to stick to the melted chocolate.
- Cool: Allow the chocolate to cool on the baking sheet until the chocolate has completely hardened. Don’t touch the granola, otherwise you’ll mess up the beautiful chocolate clusters you created. Depending on the temperature of your kitchen the cooling time can vary, mine took about 2 hours – it’s well worth it though, my friends!
- Eat: Once the chocolate had hardened you can eat the granola. We love eating it straight, as is. You can add it to yogurt, or milk, but the granola is so good and rich, and sweet that I prefer it as more of dessert. It could be a delicious topping to ice cream though.
- Store: Gently transfer the completely cooled granola to an air tight container and store and room temp. Granola will last for up to several weeks, but you’ll probably eat it all way before then lol. Enjoy!
Notes
gluten free: To ensure that this recipe is gluten free make sure to use certified gluten free oats.
vegan/dairy free: To keep this recipe vegan and/or dairy free be sure to use vegan/dairy free chocolate chips.
Chocolate chips: you can use semi-sweet chocolate chips, or milk chocolate chips, if you prefer, just keep in mind the granola will be sweeter. I recommend the dark chocolate chips. 😉
