Jack's Favorite Granola (Microwave)

By Addie

"This is a recipe which believe it or not I got in the 7th grade during home economics class. It is a really easy and great snack. I recommend it for all ages!" by NH Nichole

Ingredients

• 4 cups Quick or Old Fashioned oats
• 1/3 cup coconut
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup raisins

Preparation

Step 1

1. Pour oatmeal into a glass microwaveable dish and cook for two minutes, stirring once. (YES, microwave the oats! I'm not sure why, but this is how I learned to do it in my 7th grade home economics class and it has worked for me every time).

2. Combine all other ingredients into a bowl. Add in oatmeal. Stir until well blended with your fingers. Your fingers will get pretty sticky!

3. Pour mixture into a glass dish and microwave on high for 5-6 minutes or until golden brown. Stir every minute. Cool on wax paper.


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REVIEWS

You had me at 7th grade Home Economics! We loved this recipe - simple, tasty and fun. I omitted the coconut. I did have to mix quite a bit to get oat mixture covered evenly, but once I did, and with the mixing every 5 min during the oven cooking process, it came out excellent. I brought it to a brunch potluck with a bowl of vanilla yogurt and it was a major hit.

Honestly, I thought this would come out horrible in the microwave, but it's pretty good! I didn't read the recipe all the way through and I "combined all other ingredients" (including the raisins!) so they burnt a bit but I will definitely be making this again and adding other fruits to make new varieties! Thanks!

I'll admit, this recipe is a bit confusing. The first step really threw me...why would you microwave dry oats for two minutes? Is there an ingredient missing that you are supposed to mix with the oats or is this a technique I'm just not familiar with? Because of my uncertainty, I decided to skip that step and see what happened. :o) I mixed the oats and coconut and some sliced almonds together & then I mixed the oil, brown sugar and remaining ingredients together. The brown sugar, of course, didn't melt in the oil and so it was pretty glumpy. After much stirring I was able to coat the oats pretty evenly (even though there were clumps of brown sugar throughout). At first it baked like the other granola recipes I had tried and it smelled wonderful. When I hit 10 minutes in the oven the coating was more like a caramel corn coating and was starting bubble. I took it out of the oven at about 17 minutes because it was getting so dark. It also smelled a little scorched so I wasn't sure if it was going to be edible or not. The coating was indeed like caramel and it was kind of hard to break the granola into pieces once it cooled. I wasn't holding out much hope of like this but then I ate it and even though it was a bit sweet, I really enjoyed it! It reminds me a lot of a 'traditional' granola bar (you know, the ones before they came out with the soft granola bars in all the fancy flavors). It is crunchy like that and it taste just like the ones I used to take to school. My kids loved the granola too and said it was very addicting. We felt the flavor was worthy of 5 stars but considering the questions about the method, I decided to go with 4. I also think there is a little too much 'coating' for the amount of oats. But in the end, we really liked it a lot. Thanks for sharing!

I just finished making this in the microwave and it is great! Since Marg said that there was plenty of "coating", I increased the oats to 4 cups. After microwaving it for 2 of the minutes, the big clumps of brown sugar mixed in fine and coated very evenly. Mine is actually still cooling, and is clumpy, but that is what I was hoping for. Thanks for a super-easy oh-so-yummy recipe. I will make this again as soon as this batch is gone. Oh, I skipped the raisins, and will add pecans next time.

This was the 1st granola recipe I've ever tried! It was very easy to make and very tastey!! It was a little sweet for my taste, so I might reduce the amount of brown sugar next time. I added almonds, sesame seeds, flax seeds and dried cranberries! So delicious! I'll definitely make this one again. Thanks for sharing it!

This is what I was looking for a basic recipe I could add to according to our taste. Very simple to make. For starters I used molasses instead of honey, my one yr. old can't have honey yet, but she loves molasses. I'd watch it after 10 min. because I didn't need the twenty min. for my oven. We divided it up. For the end we added some nuts and chocolate chips. I think next time instead of cinnamon I may use a sugar cocoa powder mix I made. These are the kids of recipes I love give me the basic technique and let me make it my own!

This is what I was looking for a basic recipe I could add to according to our taste. Very simple to make. For starters I used molasses instead of honey, my one yr. old can't have honey yet, but she loves molasses. I'd watch it after 10 min. because I didn't need the twenty min. for my oven. We divided it up. For the end we added some nuts and chocolate chips. I think next time instead of cinnamon I may use a sugar cocoa powder mix I made. These are the kids of recipes I love give me the basic technique and let me make it my own!

This is what I was looking for a basic recipe I could add to according to our taste. Very simple to make. For starters I used molasses instead of honey, my one yr. old can't have honey yet, but she loves molasses. I'd watch it after 10 min. because I didn't need the twenty min. for my oven. We divided it up. For the end we added some nuts and chocolate chips. I think next time instead of cinnamon I may use a sugar cocoa powder mix I made. These are the kids of recipes I love give me the basic technique and let me make it my own!

I have been making this for over a year now and still have no desire to even try another recipe for granola. Everyone I make this for says it is the best granola they have ever had, and I agree with them. Use quick oats for more of a cereal like granola, and use old fashioned oats for bigger chunk granola. A must try recipe.

GREAT recipe. I like my granola on the crunchy side so it was just perfect. My sister-in-law and I sat at the park watching our kids play and ate almost an entire batch. I even sent the recipe to her because she wanted to use it instead of her current one.

This was very easy and cinnamon-y sweet. The kids are eating it before it is finally cooled! We have made this several times now. I like the crunch that baking the granola makes better than the microwave method. Some additions you might like would be: a pinch a salt, whole almonds for crunch, and if you want to be really crazy healthy...add wheat germ! I had all of those items minus the cinnamon and instead of raisins, I added mixed dried fruit. See the picture. Very good granola. Do watch the last few minutes, because it toasts up quickly at the end.

This is a really good recipe. I reduced the oats by one cup and added 1 cup of rice krispies. It made the granola crispy. It made plenty to share with my neighbor. I couldn't wait to try it and had some with milk right away. Yummy and healthy! Next time, I will add flax.

Great simple/quick granola recipe. I thought it would be too sticky at first, but it firmed up nicely after cooling. This was wonderful served with yogurt and fresh fruit as well as right out of the bowl! Thanks

My family and I enjoyed this so much that I had to make two batches yesterday. The first time I followed the recipe, minus the coconut and
raisins. It was delicious, but too sweet for me, however, my husband and
son enjoyed it. It came out very crunchy using the microwave method. The next batch I used four cups of oats and felt that it was still sweet enough. It is sweet enough that I don't think it needs any dried fruit which is nice becasue I don't always have it on hand. With the increased oats, I think I should have slightly increased the microwave time (maybe 30 to 45 seconds) to obtain the same crunchiness. I think that the first step of microwaving the dry oats helps to remove moisture from them--so don't skip this step, it's there for a reason. This is delicious and very easy to make. I will maybe cut the oil back to 1/3 cup next time and see how it turns out.