Recipe: Homemade Nutty Oat Cold Cereal
[1]Summary: You can call it muesli or raw granola, but I call it simply delicious, with a perfect balance of oats, nuts and seeds and dried fruit to power you through the whole morning.
Ingredients
- 2 cups rolled oats
- 1 ¼ cups mixed chopped, toasted nuts and seeds (I used pecans, cashews, sunflower seeds and slivered almonds. I don’t recommend peanuts because they overpower.)
- 2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts (I call these out separately because I don’t want you to overpower it with them)
- 2 tablespoons ground flax seeds
- 1/2 cup raisins (or other chopped dried fruit)
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
[2]Milk (or your choice of nondairy milk), for serving- Shredded coconut (optional) (I used sweetened coconut)
- Fresh berries or sliced bananas for the top (I used Driscoll’s blackberries)
Instructions
- Combine the oats, nuts and seeds, flax, raisins and cinnamon in a large bowl. Pour into an airtight container and store in the pantry for up a month, or in the fridge for several months.
- To serve, pour some cereal mix in a bowl, top with a pinch of coconut if you like it, and pour milk over. Allow milk to absorb for 2-3 minutes before eating; oats will absorb some of the milk and soften a bit.
- Makes 6+ servings
Coconut notes
I find that coconut is a polarizing food. Some love it (me!); some hate it (my daughter and sister-in-law). To save the day, allow each person to add their own coconut if they wish. I found that when I used sweetened coconut, I didn’t have to add any sugar or extra sweetener to the cereal.
[3]Source
Slightly adapted and wholly inspired by Mark Bittman’s Homemade Cold Cereal [4] from his new book “VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health for Good.”
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Diet type: Vegetarian
Number of servings (yield): 6
Driscoll’s provided the berries for recipe development.