I absolutely LOVE chocolate. I wanted to share my favorite foods with my son, and when discovered his food allergies I realized he wouldn’t be able to enjoy very many chocolaty things as they generally contain dairy. I started coming up with all kinds of recipes to replace some of my favorite chocolatey treats with food allergy safe options. I hope you enjoy this homemade chocolate granola as much as we do!
What Makes This Recipe So Great
- Gluten Free & Nut Free: Most granola in the stores is made with non-gluten free certified oats and almost always contains nuts! Even most recipes for granola out there contain nuts. This recipe is made with gluten-free oats and has no nuts! I do use coconut sugar when I make the recipe, but you can easily use cane sugar or another sugar in it’s place.
- Easy To Make: I never knew granola was so easy to make, and it’s great because you know exactly what’s in it for a healthier but also allergen safe option!
- It’s Delicious: I LOVE chocolate granola, but it can be pretty expensive and full of all kinds of ingredients, this is the perfect simple homemade version that tastes so good.
Ingredients & How to Substitute
- Gluten Free Oats – If you need to be gluten free, make sure you buy gluten free oats! If you don’t have an issue with gluten, any oats will work great.
- Chia Seeds – This adds some extra texture, but not a necessary ingredient. If you don’t have it or can’t eat chia seeds, just leave it out.
- Cane Sugar – I actually normally use coconut sugar, but for the sake of making this totally “nut” free you can rally use any sugar. I recommend cane sugar or coconut sugar.
- Salt – This helps balance the flavors.
- Coco Powder – This is pretty essential to make this chocolate granola, but it would taste good without.
- Avocado Oil – Your granola needs a good amount of oil otherwise it won’t turn out well. If you don’t have avocado oil, coconut oil or vegetable oil will work, but I like avocado oil the best.
- Honey – This is sweet and adds more liquid to the mix to help it bind together. You can also use maple syrup instead.
- Allergen Friendly Chocolate Chips – EnjoyLife brand is my goto, but any chocolate you can eat works perfect!
Some Recipe Tips
Put the chocolate chips on the granola before it cools down all the way so that the chocolate melts into the granola a little bit. When it cools down and hardens all the way, it will be evenly distributed throughout the granola, whereas if you put it in after it’s already cooled down, it’ll just sink to the bottom. If you put it in during the bake time, I think it could burn and Iose some of it’s shape, I like that it keeps it’s chocolate chip shape when added during the cool down process.
You can break up the chocolate granola into whatever size you like, whether it’s large chunks for snacking, or smaller chunks for cereal or trail mix.
Homemade Chocolate Granola
Ingredients
- 3 cups gluten free rolled oats
- 2 tbsp chia seeds
- 3 tbsp cane sugar I use coconut sugar and actually recommend it if you can do coconut
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1/3 cup coco powder
- 1/4 cup avocado oil
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1/2 cup allergen friendly chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 340 degrees F.
- Mix everything except the chocolate chips together really well in a bowl - it can be helpful to mix all the dry ingredients before adding the oil and honey.
- Put mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and use a spoon to spread it out into an even layer.
- Bake in oven for about 20 minutes.
- Pour chocolate chips evenly over the granola while still warm then let cool completely before breaking into chunks.
- Enjoy as a tasty snack or in a bowl with your favorite dairy-free milk.
- Store in an airtight container until ready to eat, up to two weeks.
