Sourdough Granola
This sourdough granola is the way to go if you love huge, golden, oat clusters. It’s maple-sweetened, cinnamon-kissed and a great way to use up a good amount of sourdough discard.
I started making sourdough granola not long after getting serious about regularly baking sourdough loaves at home. It became a favorite way to use up sourdough discard and the big, oat clumps the sticky discard effortlessly enabled quickly made me take notice. It became a thing around here. I like this granola loaded with clumps, everything golden and crisp. Maple syrup delivers just enough soft-edged sweetness, cinnamon plays a more assertive role. And to get everything to crisp up and brown there are a couple important techniques I use outlined below.
How To Make Sourdough Granola
You're going to need sourdough discard from feeding a sourdough starter. Beyond that, the one thing you need to know: this granola is wet, damp, going into the oven. The discard and maple syrup are the culprits. Your goal here is to battle that. You want to bake every bit of moisture out of those clusters without over-baking or over-browning the whole situation. Halfway though baking you might doubt yourself, the granola looks sad and it's (literally) steaming. Have faith! A good amount of olive oil here helps with the crisping, but the little trick that really delivers a good bake: allow the granola to cool in the oven by propping the oven door open a bit with a wooden spoon. It takes an extra 45 minutes or an hour, but it delivers. Look at the close-up pictures. Crunchy! Beyond that, here are the major steps.
Mix your liquids. Ignore the wooden spoon you’re seeing in the photo here. Use a fork instead. It helps to break up the sourdough discard more quickly. You want a fairly uniform appearance, but if it’s a bit stringy or there are a few lumps, that’s fine.
Combine dry ingredients. Then add them to the wet ingredients. Mix really well (see above), and then mix some more.
Spread across a large sheet pan. The larger the better. Or spit across two pans. Bake, tossing regularly after about 20 minutes, or as things are starting to brown at the edges. After about 50-60 minutes toss one last time, turn off the oven, prop open the oven door and walk away for a while. When you come back you’ll have perfect granola!
Sourdough Granola Variations
- Ginger-Cinnamon Sourdough Granola: Add 1 tablespoon ground ginger to the recipe below.
- Smoked Cinnamon Sourdough Granola: I bought this smoked cinnamon a while back and it is really something special. I shy away from using it full-on in a recipe like this one, and prefer to make a blend instead. You use 1 1/2 tablespoons of cinnamon here, just swap in 1 teaspoon of the smoked if you get your hands on some.
- Seeds! If you want to add some seeds to this granola, go for it. You can leave the amount of walnuts the same and add up to 1/3 cup of seeds. Sesame, sunflower, and hemp are all fair game.
- Spices: Experiment with added spices or swapping in other spice blends. Some ideas: cloves, star anise, curry powder, baharat, etc.
- Use sourdough granola in your baking projects: Mix a couple cups of clumps into your next batch of cookies or use it to top a favorite ice cream or frozen yogurt.
More Granola Recipes
- Peanut Butter Granola
- Rose Petal Granola
- The Perfect Healthy Granola (low oil & naturally sweetened)
More Sourdough Recipes
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Sourdough Granola
I use a 100% hydration sourdough discard here. This means I feed my starter with 50g flour and 50g water daily, or do more ifyou know you want to bake this in the next day or two. I like to use discard that isn’t more than a few days old.
- 1 cup / 225 g sourdough discard
- 2/3 cup / 200 g maple syrup
- 4 ounces / 115 g extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups / 330 g chopped walnuts
- 370 g / 4 cups rolled oats (not instant)
- 1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon
- 1 1/4 teaspoons fine grain sea salt
- To serve: yogurt, maple syrup, berries, dried rose petals
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Heat oven to 350°F / 175°C with racks in the center. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
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In a large bowl mix the sourdough discards, maple syrup, olive oil, and vanilla extract with a fork until well combined. It’s ok if this mixture is a bit stringy or lumpy, that’s normal.
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Add the walnuts, oats, cinnamon and salt to the wet ingredients and mix well. Really go for it.
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Spread in an even layer across the sheet pan and bake for 20 minutes or until the granola is starting to brown a bit near the edges. Use a spatula to flip and toss the granola, moving things around. Bake for another 30-40 minutes, tossing every 10 minutes or so, moving the browning bits back toward the center. This is active baking! Keep going until everything is deeply golden.
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Turn off the oven, prop open the oven door a bit with a wooden spoon, and allow the granola to crisp as it cools in the oven.
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Enjoy by the handful or served over yogurt with a drizzle of maple syrup and some berries and or dried rose petals.
Serves 16.
Related Recipes
Peanut Butter Granola
Using a short ingredient list of pantry basics, this peanut butter granola is incredibly good. It features a peanut butter and maple syrup coating that bakes beautifully into crunchy oat clusters.
Rose Petal Granola
A variation on the granola from my book, Super Natural Every Day - this time with rose petals, walnuts, currants, and black pepper.
The Perfect Healthy Granola (Low Oil & Naturally Sweetened)
There are a few different granola camps. This one falls squarely in the great, everyday, healthy granola category. Midnight black and deeply chocolate-flavored with dark black cocoa and cocoa nibs, this granola is packed with heart-healthy oats and seeds. Naturally sweetened, clumpy, and crunchy, the recipe calls for just a small splash of olive oil, and leverages a secret ingredient to bring it all together.
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