I don’t know about you, but I am a big fan of granola. However, I’m not a big fan of all the sugar and added junk you find in store bought granola. I love making my own granola because not only is it easy to make, but you also have more control over the ingredients it is made with. Making granola at home may sound a little daunting but I promise you that it is easier than it seems. This raspberry almond granola recipe is a great place to start!
Tip: I like to buy granola ingredients like nuts, seeds, and oats in the bulk section whenever possible. If you are not able to do buy from bulk bins, I find that Trader Joe's has the best prices on these items.
Lower Sugar High Fiber Granola
This recipe uses raspberries to flavor the granola, which adds a delicious sweet and tart flavor. Using raspberries to flavor this recipe also make this granola recipe lower in sugar and higher in fiber than most others. The oatmeal and chia seed are also good sources of fiber. This makes this granola recipe a delicious way to significantly increase your fiber intake.
Fiber is excellent for many things and one of those is that it helps you to feel satisfied after eating. This helps to prevent you from over eating because nobody likes a good coma. Another great thing about fiber is that it to stabilizes your blood sugar. Overall, this means that fiber can help you to have better energy, manage your weight, improve your cholesterol levels, and balance your hormones.
Chia Seeds and Fiber
If you're looking to boost the fiber in your diet, I recommend adding chia seeds to your grocery list. If you aren't familiar with chia seeds, they are a small black seed that that becomes gelatinous in liquid. I consider chia seeds to be a "nutrient booster" because they can significant increase the nutrients in a dish but have a rather neutral flavor. This makes them easy to add to lots of different dishes to "boost" the nutrients without changing the flavor.
TIP: when eating foods containing chia seeds, it is vital to increase your water intake since these seeds absorb a lot of water and are also high in fiber.
Other Ways to Eat Chia Seeds
- Add to yogurt
- Blend into smoothies
- Sprinkle on top of peanut butter or avocado toast
- Add to oatmeal
- Make chia seed pudding
TIP: when you first start eating chia seeds be sure to start with a small amount (~1 tsp) and slowly increase as tolerated. If your stomach isn't used to digesting a large amount of fiber, consuming too many chia seeds at once may cause you to have bloating or a stomach ache. If you start small and increase slowly, you will give your stomach time to adjust to this increase in fiber.
Other Chia Seed Recipes
Zesty blueberry chia seed pudding
Recipe
Healthy Raspberry Almond Granola
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cup old fashioned oats
- 1 cup frozen raspberries
- 1 cup freeze dried raspberries
- ¼ cup maple syrup (you can use honey if you prefer)
- ¼ cup slivered almonds
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
- 1 tablespoon cashew butter
- 1 tablespoon chia seeds
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325° F
- Defrost the frozen raspberries by either leaving them in the refrigerator overnight or using the defrost function on your microwave. Once they are defrosted, use a strainer to remove excess liquid.
- If you are using fresh raspberries, you can skip the defrosting step.
- Add the raspberries, maple syrup, coconut oil, cashew butter, and almond extract to a medium sized bowl and mix together. If using fresh raspberries, be sure to mash the raspberries while mixing.
- Add the oats, almonds, salt, and chia seeds to the bowl of wet ingredients and mix together until everything is well coated.
- Add the granola mixture to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or greased and place in the oven.
- Every 10 minutes, pull the baking sheet out of the oven and check the granola. Once you see it starting to get a little brown around the edges, stir the granola. Continue doing this every 10 minutes for a total of 30 to 40 minutes.
- Once all of the granola is light golden, remove from the oven and allow to cool completely. The granola will crisp up while cooking.
- After the granola is cooled, mix in the freeze dried raspberries & enjoy!
Notes
- Add to smoothies/smoothie bowls
- Use as a topping on yogurt bowls
- Use as a topping for oatmeal
- Simply snack on the granola by itself!
- Add as a topping to sliced bananas/apples with peanut butter for some added crunch
- 130 calories
- 5g fiber
- 5g protein
- 180 calories
- 7g fiber
- 7g protein
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