Healthy Homemade Granola

I decided the other day that I was going to make homemade granola. I've made it before and not had much success, but wanted to give it a go. I've had some delicious granola on yogurt at our favorite yogurt place recently and wanted to see if I could recreate theirs at home.

After checking out several recipes on the internet and reading some reviews I decided to replace the oil for apple sauce to reduce fat and calories. After three batches, I think I've tweaked the recipe and created the perfect granola! It is a bit labor intensive, but deliciously worth it. Of course you can make substitutions, additions, or subtractions to fit your tastes.

Ingredients
4 cups of oats (not quick oats!)
2 tbs. sugar
2 tbs. cinnamon
2 cups unsweetened applesauce
4 tbs. honey
1 cup sunflower seeds
2 cups raisins
Dash of vanilla

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Mix oats with sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl. Spread oats on one large or two small cookie sheets in a thin layer. Put the oats in the oven and toast, turning every 5 minutes. This should take about 15 minutes. While the oats are toasting, mix honey, vanilla, and applesauce in a small pan on the stove and heat for 5 minutes. Don't let it get too hot or simmer, we're just warming the sauce. Mix the oats, sunflower seeds, and applesauce in a large bowl. Put the granola mixture in a greased 9x13" pan and bake for 45 minutes or until golden and dry. Turn every 10 minutes or so. Put granola in a large bowl and mix in raisins while still warm. Allow granola to cool before putting in an airtight container.

Trust me when I say this is a delicious snack that I have to ration. The first batch that I made went on everything and disappeared very quickly! Now I know to put it in small snack bags to ration it out. I eat this as a snack on long work-outs, put it on cool whip with strawberries and mix it with cottage cheese for a high protein snack.

I also recently tried baking the granola into bars using a bar pan. They turned out fantastic! I didn't use raisins in this batch. 

Here are the nutritional facts for a 1/4 cup serving: