Sourdough Granola [with discard option]

Sourdough granola! Yes, you read that right. You can make the most delicious homemade sourdough granola using sourdough starter. It’s super easy, crunchy and delicious. And the best thing is that it contains very little sugar and isn’t processed like the boxes you buy from the store.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe!

Customize It To Suit Your Tastes – Once you get the hang of making sourdough granola, you can customize the add ins to suit your taste preferences or even the occasion or holiday. You can even make this into big crunchy sourdough granola clusters, or break it up into a finer texture.

Less Sugar – using sourdough starter means you can use less sweetner in the granola. Traditionally, you use honey or maple syrup to bind it together. Using sourdough starter as the binder means you can use much less sugar.

Use Active Starter or Sourdough Discard – use whatever you have on hand. If you’re using discard, just make sure it’s not old discard as it will impart an unpleasant flavor into your granola. I prefer using fed starter. 

Ingredients

• Sourdough Starter, can be active or discard
• Honey or maple syrup – you want the sweetener you use to be a liquid, so avoid brown sugar or granulated sugar.
• Melted Coconut Oil – you can substitute this with avocado oil if you prefer. 
• Vanilla Extract
• Rolled Oats
• Raw Nuts – you can use any raw nuts you like to eat! Think walnuts, pecans, cashews, pistachios or almonds.
• Seeds – I love using sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, golden flax seeds and chia seeds, but you can literally use whatever seeds you have on hand.
• Cinnamon and Nutmeg – leave these out or add other spices to suit your preferences.
• Salt
• Dried Fruit – this is optional but I love adding raisins, dried blueberries, cherries, chopped, dried apricots and cranberries.

How To Make Sourdough Granola

Sourdough granola is super easy to put together (there’s a reason it’s one of the most popular sourdough discard recipes on my site). The hardest thing to do is decide what nuts and seeds to add to the mix!

Here’s how to make sourdough granola:

Preheat your oven and then add the sourdough starter, honey, vanilla and coconut oil together in a bowl and blend together using a fork or whisk.

Once the liquid ingredients are smooth, add the oats, nuts and spices on top. Stir the ingredients until everything is coated with the sourdough starter mixture.

Press a tight, even layer of granola onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake low and slow until the mixture is golden and toasty. The honey (or maple syrup) used in the mixture means that it will burn easily. It’s better to bake it lower and slower, than have the oven too hot and end up with burnt, bitter granola.

Once the granola cools, break it up into pieces and toss through the dried fruit. It’s totally up to you whether you want to leave the granola in bigger, crunchy clusters or break it up a bit more into a more cereal type texture. 

Don’t add the dried fruit until after the granola has been baked and cooled. If you bake the dried fruit in the granola it will become hard and even drier. You want the dried fruit to add some sweetness and moisture.

Granola Flavor Variations

While this granola recipe is super tasty as it is, it can be fun to create different flavor variations. It’s really easy to change out a few ingredients to create these 6 different flavors!

Honey Oat Sourdough Granola

• Use 50g of raw almonds as the nuts and 50g of rice cereal for the seeds.
• Increase the honey to 40g.
• You can still add dried fruit if you wish, but this is just as yummy without it.

Maple Pecan Sourdough Granola

• Use maple syrup instead of honey (you can increase the amount a little for a more pronounced flavor).
• Use 100g of chopped pecans instead of the nuts and seeds in the recipe.

Apricot & Almond Sourdough Granola

• Use 70g of natural almonds instead of the nuts and seeds.
• Leave out the spices.
• Add 100g of chopped, dried apricots and 50g of flaked almonds after the granola has been baked and cooled.

Choc Coconut Sourdough Granola

For an even more delicious chocolate flavor, why not make this chocolate sourdough starter and create your granola from that!

• Use 100g of shredded coconut flakes instead of the nuts and seeds.
• Use 20g of cocoa powder instead of the spices
• Stir through 50 – 100g of mini chocolate chips once the granola has cooled (depending on how chocolatey you want it).

Apple & Cinnamon Sourdough Granola

• Use 100g of walnuts instead of the nuts and seeds
• Double the cinnamon used to 2 teaspoons.
• Add 100g of dried apple pieces after the granola has been baked and cooled.

Pumpkin Spice Sourdough Granola

• Use 50g of pecans and 50g of pumpkin seeds.
• Use 2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice instead of the spiced listed in the recipe
• Add 100g of cranberries when the granola has cooled.

Gingerbread Granola

• Double the cinnamon used to 2 teaspoons.
• Add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of powdered ginger (depending on your taste).
• Add 1/4 teaspoon of powdered cloves.
• Increase the maple syrup or honey if you would prefer a sweeter taste.
• If gifting this one, you could also crush up some sourdough gingerbread cookies and toss through the baked granola.

Festive Christmas Granola

• Double the cinnamon to 2 teaspoons.
• Add two teaspoons of orange zest before baking.
• Add 100g of cranberries and 100g of dark choc chips once the granola has cooled. I’ve even added some pistachios to the festive Christmas sourdough granola below – perfect for holiday gifting!

Serving Suggestions & Uses

There are so many ways you can use up this sourdough granola. You don’t just have to eat it as cereal! Here are a few ways that we are using it at my house (let me tell you that I make like a 4x batch of this stuff because it disappears so quickly!).

• Serve with thick, creamy yogurt and slice banana for a quick, easy breakfast.
• Leave the granola in crunchy clusters and use it as a base for a trail mix for work snacks.
• Use it as a topping for crackers – these cinnamon sugar crackers work really well as a base.
• Use it in these jumbo sourdough granola muffins or toasty sourdough granola bars.
• Stir it into your favorite chocolate and spread over a baking tray to set – sourdough granola chocolate bark!
• Use it as the topping for a fruit crumble dessert like this sourdough apple crisp.

How To Store It

Sourdough granola lasts quite a while. I prefer to store it in a tall, glass jar. It not only looks super pretty on your counter top, it keeps it fresh for a lot longer.

Any airtight container will keep the granola fresh, however I think glass keeps it crunchier than plastic.

Share the sourdough love!