Spice up your breakfast life with this grain-free, gluten-free recipe for keto, paleo granola. It's a total crowd-pleaser filled with healthy fats and whole food ingredients that everyone will enjoy. Try serving it to the whole family and see if they can tell the difference.
Description
Coat crispy chocolate cookies made from SuperFat Cacao Mint in a dense layer of chocolate. These are not thin mints -- they’re SuperFat. They're also Keto and Paleo approved.
Prep Time
10 minutes
Cook Time
30 minutes
Cool Time
0 minutes
Total Time
40 minutes
Ingredients
- Olive oil or avocado oil for greasing the baking sheet
- 2 tbs flaxseeds
- 1 tbs chia seeds
- 5 tbs water
- 2 cups unsweetened coconut flakes
- 2 cups slivered almonds
- ½ cup pecans
- ½ cup walnuts
- ¼ cup hemp seeds
- 2 tbs brown Swerve
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 2 tbs coconut oil (melted)
- 1 tbs ghee (melted) (leave out and add another tbs of coconut oil for a totally vegan recipe)
- ½ tsp sea salt
- 1 tbs monk fruit syrup
Directions
- Preheat oven to 325°F
- In a small bowl, stir the flaxseeds, chia seeds, and water into a bowl and let sit for at least 2 minutes while you prepare the other ingredients.
- Using a plastic bag, crush the pecans and walnuts into pieces with a kitchen mallet.
- In a large bowl, mix coconut, slivered almonds, pecans, walnuts, hemp seeds, and brown Swerve.
- Slowly, add the flax and chia mixture, two to three spoonfuls at a time, stirring with a large spoon until it’s all incorporated and evenly distributed.
- Stir the melted coconut oil and ghee into the mixture.
- Add sea salt a monk fruit maple syrup and stir until everything is well-mixed.
- Spread mixture evenly onto a greased baking sheet (alternatively, you can like your sheet with parchment paper)
- Bake for 20 minutes, flip using a spatula, then bake for another 10 minutes until golden brown
- Let your granola come to room temperature on the counter before storing it in a glass, air-tight container.
Servings
- 5 servings
More On Grain-Free Granola
So you're getting tired of eggs and want something else for breakfast on your paleo diet. Or maybe you've gone a bit stricter than standard paleo and have moved into the keto diet. Whether you're working to keep the processed food out or trying for the very low-carb lifestyle, breakfast can start to feel a bit monotonous. Sure, there's a lot you can do with eggs, but at some point, you might be ready for a change. This grain-free paleo granola recipe is at your service.
What you'll find in this recipe is a number of nuts and seeds, coconut flakes, and keto-approved sweeteners that will give your crispy granola just enough sweetness to hit the spot without going overboard. The secret to recipes like this is that, while there are a few things you definitely need to include, there's tons of room for creativity and flexibility to make a breakfast creation that you really want to eat.
Grain-Free Granola: The Basics
Grain-free granola might seem like an oxymoron if you've been eating the oat-based stuff. While there's nothing inherently with eating occasional oats, they're definitely off-limits if you're on the paleo or keto diet. That's because they're a high-carb grain that will spike your blood sugar if you eat too much. Add to the fact that traditional granola usually has a ton of sugar in it, and you have a sugar crash waiting to happen. Not ideal for your first meal of the day.
In just about every grain-free granola you'll find, two main ingredients are pretty consistently on the ingredients label: slivered almonds and coconut flakes. That's because the shape and texture of these two ingredients mimic traditional granola really well while still managing to check the paleo and keto boxes. Just make sure you're using unsweetened coconut flakes so that you don't dose yourself with a bunch of sugar by accident.
Additional nuts and seeds are also usually part of the grain-free granola package, just to bulk things up and add some extra protein and healthy fat. This recipe includes pecans, walnuts, and hemp seeds, but it's also delicious to add pumpkin seeds (pepitas), sunflower seeds, cashews, or even macadamia nuts into the mix. We encourage you to experiment with a few new ingredients every time you make your homemade granola until you've found the combination you like best.
So far, the basics are a bunch of dried ingredients that don't quite amount to tasty granola. What holds this recipe together are soaked chia and flax seeds. If you're vegan, you've likely heard of using either one of these ingredients to substitute for egg in baking. Both take on a slippery, gelatinous consistency when wet, so when you soak them for a few minutes, they become a thick, viscous substance that holds things together.
They perform the same binding function in this recipe as they do in baking. We've included both in order to give you the omega-3s and lignans that both provide, but it's ok if you only have one. Just make sure you use a total of 3 tablespoons, and you'll get the same effect. After just a couple of minutes soaking in water, they swell up.
A Word on Sweeteners
It's in the sweetness department where the rules of paleo and keto can sometimes diverge. The paleo philosophy is all about using unrefined, natural ingredients and eating like our paleolithic ancestors did—no refined sugar of any kind. That means foraged foods that look the same on your plate as they do in nature. Lucky for standard paleo folks, raw honey and maple syrup fit the bill. So do fresh and unsweetened dried fruits. This isn't necessarily the case if you're looking to graduate from paleo to the ketogenic diet. While a handful of blueberries might be ok for topping your grain-free granola, you'll mostly want to steer clear of most fresh and basically all dried fruit to avoid getting kicked out of ketosis.
According to paleo experts, the sweetener options that are ok for both paleo and keto eaters are erythritol and monk fruit. For this reason, we've used these in this recipe. These sugar alternatives are both sugar-free with very few net carbs. The good news for paleo folks is that both of the brands we've chosen (Swerve for the brown sugar erythritol and ChocZero maple syrup for the monk fruit) have a 1:1 ratio with standard sugar. If you're on the paleo train but aren't interested in keto, feel free to swap the sweeteners we've used below with honey or maple syrup, 1:1. What you end up with will most certainly be just as delicious.
The Pegan Option
Many health- and eco-conscious folks are taking paleo to a new place: Pegan. The term "pegan," coined by Dr. Mark Hyman, a popular author MD who advocates for natural health and healing through food, means "paleo-vegan." In essence, it's taking the principles of the paleo diet: eating whole foods that are unadulterated by processing or additives, and cutting out the animal products. It seems like a tall order for most paleo dieters since it can sometimes feel like a pretty carnivorous diet. But It can be done. s
The only animal product (which, even though it's not dairy-free is still considered paleo in most circles) is ghee. Ghee is butter that has been cooked down and clarified, removing the potentially problematic ingredients: lactose and casein. Both of these ingredients have the potential to cause digestive upset for those with sensitivities or allergies, so using ghee as an alternative is a great option if you still want that buttery flavor in your life. If you want to make this recipe pegan, simply replace the tablespoon of ghee with another tablespoon of coconut oil, and your problem is solved.
And if you're wondering how a pegan eater would dress up this granola once it's ready to eat, simply go with coconut or almond milk-based yogurt, or just eat it like cereal with a nut milk of your choice.
Mixing and Matching Your Paleo Granola Recipe
As we hinted at the beginning of this article, the recipe below is simply a roadmap to get you off the ground. The first time you make it, simply follow the instructions below, but once you get the hang of it, there are countless different directions you could go to create various flavors for your paleo granola. For chocolate granola, skip the cinnamon and add 2 tbs of raw cacao to the mix. For Mexican chocolate, keep the cinnamon in, and add the raw cacao, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. If you want to turn this mix into a fall favorite, add 1 teaspoon of pumpkin spice mix to the recipe below and toss in some unsweetened dried cranberries. (Skip the cranberries for keto.) The possibilities really are endless when it comes to making this recipe your own.
