Sourdough Granola

Sourdough granola makes a healthy and delicious breakfast. With maple syrup, oats, coconut oil, and sourdough discard, this granola is full of good for you ingredients. Add in your favorite nuts and dried fruit to make this granola your own!

Ever tried to make your own granola bars? While homemade granola bars definitely are delicious, they tend to crumble apart when you try to eat them. Yummy but so messy. Why not just make granola instead? You don’t have to worry about it making a mess, it still has all the fun fruits and nuts, and you can eat granola with yogurt, milk, or fruit.

The best part about this granola recipe though is that it uses sourdough discard! This helps bind the granola into perfectly sized clumps and adds a little prebiotic benefit too. Combined with a little coconut oil, maple syrup, and oats, you’ll have a great base recipe that’s easy to adapt and make your own! Once you see how quick and simple it is to bake sourdough granola, you’ll have a hard time going back to store-bought. 🙂

What is Sourdough Discard?

Sourdough discard is the starter that you normally get rid of every time you feed your starter. If you bake regularly with your starter, you might not need to discard because you’re using so much of your starter. However, if at the end of the week you have a cup of starter left, you should discard at least half of it (if not more) when you feed it. 

How do you use Sourdough Discard?

While you can just through the discard away, it’s much more fun to bake with it! You can add it to nearly any baked recipe – muffins, cakes, cookies, brownies. It will give your baked goods a unique and tangy flavor impossible to achieve otherwise. You can find sourdough discard recipes from the blog here!

What makes homemade granola stick together?

You can use lots of binding ingredients when making your own granola. Honey, maple syrup, coconut oil, and flax seeds all do a great job of this. In this recipe though, I use sourdough discard as a binding ingredient to help the granola stick together and form nice clumps.

How long will homemade granola keep?

Homemade granola can last for a while if you store it properly! A mason jar, zip-lock bag, or other air-tight container will all work well. Let the granola cool completely before you put it in a container to prevent condensation from collecting in the container and spoiling your granola. You can enjoy homemade sourdough granola for at least 4 weeks after you bake it.

Tips for making Sourdough Granola:

• Depending on what nuts you choose to use, you may want to chop them roughly before you add them to the granola. You can also do this for dried fruit if you like.
• Make sure that you don’t bake the dried fruit with your granola, or else it will get burnt! Just stir the fruit in after you bake the granola.
• If you want to add chocolate chips (and who wouldn’t?), first bake the granola and let it cool completely. Stir in the chocolate chips after this to keep them from melting and making a mess.
• The granola will harden as it cools, so don’t over-bake it! 15 minutes should be just enough time to make it golden and toasted but not too crisp.
• This granola will last for a few weeks stored in an air-tight container. Make sure the granola has completely cooled before you transfer it to a container to avoid condensation getting trapped in the container with it.

Tools you will need

You’ll need a mixing bowl, measuring cups, a spatula, and a baking tray with parchment paper.

Ingredients you will need

• 1 cup oats – Old-fashioned oats will work best, but you can also use quick oats in a pinch.
• 1/2 cup sourdough starter – It can be discard or active starter. (Although why use active starter on this? Go make an easy loaf of bread!)
• 2 1/2 cups mix-ins – This can be whatever you like and have in your pantry! Pumpkin seeds, pecans, almonds, cashews, peanuts, dried cherries, cranberries, bananas, strawberries, pineapple, coconut, chocolate chips, chia seeds, and flax seeds all make great choices.
• 2 tbsp maple syrup – I think this works really well with the ginger, but you can also use honey if you prefer.
• 1 tbsp melted coconut oil – This helps to hold the granola together and it adds a little bit of healthy fats.
• 1 tbsp cinnamon – I love cinnamon so of course it had to end up in this recipe, but feel free to change up the spices you use to your taste.
• 1 1/2 tsp ginger – This adds an unexpected warm flavor, but it’s subtle enough that it won’t overpower your tastebuds.
• pinch of salt – Kosher salt works well here.

How to make Sourdough Granola

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Use the convection setting if you have it to help your granola bake evenly.

In a large bowl stir together the maple syrup, melted coconut oil, and sourdough starter. Try to make sure there are no lumps of starter left in the batter.

Next, stir in the oats, cinnamon, ginger, and salt. Finally, stir in any nuts or seeds you want. Leave out dried fruit though!

Spread the granola out in an even layer on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.

Bake the granola for 15 minutes, until the oats and nuts are toasted and golden brown. The granola will not be completely crisp at this point, but that’s ok! It will harden as it cools.

Let the granola cool for a few minutes, then break apart any large clumps and sprinkle in the dried fruit.

Looking for more ways to use your discard?

If so, make sure you head over to the Kitchen Counter for lots of discard recipes! Here are a few to try:

• Sourdough Cinnamon Scones
• Sourdough Crepes
• Sourdough Graham Crackers
• Sourdough Zucchini Bread
• Sourdough Pop Tarts

If you make this recipe and enjoy it, let me know in the comments section below! You can also tag me on instagram @oldfashionedinspiration with a picture of your creation.