Grain-free Almond Joy Granola (Gluten-free, Vegan, Paleo)

Crunchy, chocolatey, cluster-filled. You won’t want to buy store-bought granola again after trying this! Perfect for meal-prep and tastes delicious with fruit and yogurt, topped with milk, or simply by the handful!

It’s about time we had a chocolate recipe on here!!! Goodness for as often as I eat chocolate (at LEAST once/day…), it’s rather surprising there have been no recipes with chocolate yet!

So, as you may know from my “about me,” I ran cross-country in middle and high school. Along with the long, intense workouts came with a big appetite! I had a routine where every.single.night I would have a big bowl of cereal with milk before bed. I literally think this happened throughout all of middle and high school, and well into college. While there are an overwhelming amount of delicious brands and varieties of ready-to-eat cereal out there, I always have fun trying to make something homemade!

I discovered granola early in college, and soon realized that store-bought granola is expensive! Just a tiny bag (which never lasts long, of course) was quite the drain on a college budget. I discovered some homemade granola recipes online…and have been making it homemade every since. I honestly almost always have a batch of homemade granola on hand at home and rarely buy store-bought cereals anymore. My college roommate can attest that homemade granola was my late night study snack of choice. Granola is one of those foods that I personally think is so addicting!!

So a bit more about the recipe. This granola actually took several to get right. I actually started out with a base of oats (like typical granola recipes) and with the add-ins to make it “almond joy.” However, after a couple of times I scrapped the idea of a traditional oat-based recipe (at least for now with this specific flavor combination) and tried something different. You guys, this recipe is AWESOME. Needless to say, I think granola can be addicting…it should taste so good you just want one more handful…and then another! Well, my first couple of attempts were definitely edible, but just “meh.” Granola, especially a chocolate granola recipe, should never just be “meh.” Haha

 

This recipe can be adaptable, for example, using different types of nuts you may have on hand. However, the almonds and cashews are definitely my favorite combination for this recipe. I chopped up the almonds and cashews in my food processor (mostly because I’m lazy and to save time), but you can definitely just chop them by hand.

If you don’t have almond butter, cashew would be my next recommendation for a neutral flavor. Or peanut butter if that’s all you have. But, that kind of defeats the purpose of the whole almond joy theme we have going on here….not to say that you could go wrong with anything with peanut butter and chocolate though!

Canola or vegetable oil should work fine in place of the coconut (I’ve used those before in other granola recipes with great results).

The coconut can be either shredded or the flaked…I would definitely recommend getting unsweetened though. You should be able to find it in the baking aisle.

I used 2 tablespoons of dark cocoa powder (dutch-processed) and 2 tablespoons of regular cocoa powder, since I like more of a dark chocolate flavor. You can use whichever kind you prefer/have on hand!

I have come to really like the crunchy (unsweetened) taste of cacao nibs…but if you want the granola sweeter, go for the mini chocolate chips. I used cacao nibs in the batch from these photos.

Well, I think that’s about it! You will feel so proud of yourself for making homemade granola. It’s usually cheaper, healthier, and tastier than storer-bought and yields a huge batch!