Brown Butter Pecan Granola

This granola has it all. It’s crunchy, chewy, nutty, zesty, sweet as honey with a hint of spice. It makes the best yogurt parfaits!

About this Granola

This Brown Butter Pecan Granola is so simple yet so satisfying. It has brown butter, honey, orange zest and vanilla tossed in with pecans, oats and cinnamon, then baked and tossed with juicy dried cherries. It is crunchy, chewy, nutty, tart, with a hint of spice, citrus and salt. I love to eat it over plain Greek yogurt with fresh berries and a little drizzle of honey and chia seeds.

When baking this recipe, your house will be filled with the most heavenly, mouthwatering smell. Every time I make it, people come in asking “What are you making? I have to have some!”

Tips and Tricks

• Pecans To Chop the pecans, I like to put them in a sturdy ziplock bag and gently hit them with a meat tenderizer or rolling pin. You can substitute or partially replace pecans for sliced almonds, pepitas or unsweetened coconut.
• Oats Make sure to use Old Fashioned Oats, not Instant Oats.
• Cherries I’m obsessed with the dried cherries in this recipe, but I do realize they can be hard to find and a little more expensive than other dried fruits. Dried cranberries are a great substitute, if needed.
• Freezer Friendly I like to freeze half of the recipe in a freezer ziplock bag to keep it fresh until I finish the other half. You can freeze this granola up to 6 months
• Uses Serve this Brown Butter Pecan Granola in a Yogurt Parfait, as a sweet crunch on a spinach salad with balsamic or raspberry vinaigrette, as a garnish on butternut squash soup, or even sprinkled over frozen yogurt.
• Orange Zest I like to use a microplane to zest citrus. This recipe can be made without the zest, but it definitely gives the granola an extra layer of flavor.

Recipe

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Brown Butter Pecan Granola

October 14, 2021

Servings: 6 cups

Prep: 20 min

Cook: 1 hr 10 min

Total: 1 hr 30 min

Difficulty: Easy

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This granola has it all. It’s crunchy, chewy, nutty, zesty, sweet as honey with a hint of spice. It makes the best yogurt parfaits.

By: Lauren Cook

Ingredients

• 3 Cups Old Fashioned Oats
• 1 Cup Pecans, roughly chopped
• 1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter
• 1/2 Cup Honey
• 2 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
• Zest of 1 Orange
• 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
• 1 Cup Dried Cherries

Directions

• Step 1 Preheat oven to 275F.
• Step 2 In a medium saucepan, melt butter on medium heat, stirring often until butter browns, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat.
• Step 3 Combine oats, cinnamon, salt, and pecans in a medium bowl.
• Step 4 Stir honey, vanilla, and orange zest into the brown butter.
• Step 5 Stir together butter and oat mixture, until combined.
• Step 6 Spread granola evenly on a parchment lined sheet tray and bake until golden brown and slightly crisp, about one hour, stirring gently every 20 minutes. The granola will crisp up more as it cools. Let cool directly on sheet tray.
• Step 7 Once cooled, fold in dried cherries and break the granola into bite size clusters.
• Step 8 Keep Granola in an air tight container for up to 2 weeks.

About the Author

Lauren is a classically trained, professional chef. A culinary school graduate, she has spent time working organic farms in the Italian countryside and was the pastry/sous chef at a high profile restaurant in Dallas prior to becoming a full-time personal chef. Her cooking style is often referred to as “rustic.” Being a personal chef, she is not bound by a single type of cuisine and has had the opportunity to experiment with hundreds of regional recipes from all over the world.