Take Your Granola Up A Notch By Using Olive Oil

If you consult with anyone on the precipice of a long busy week, you'd probably find that quick breakfasts are a necessary component in culminating a smooth morning routine. While slapping together avocado toast or thinking ahead the night before and prepping some baked oatmeal seem like solid, easy enough choices, a lot of consumers are leaning toward a more convenient on-the-go option. According to a 2018 survey conducted by the National Honey Board, 36% of participants preferred honey-sweetened cereal or granola for breakfast as opposed to eggs, bacon, or sausage. But what is granola exactly?

According to MasterClass, granola is a dry mixture of toasted oats, nuts, and seeds, enveloped in a sweetener with a small amount of fat, and baked until slightly crunchy. There is a lot of variation when it comes to making your own granola recipe at home and lucky for you, the add-in options are endless. Chocolate, dried fruit, vanilla, coconut, and citrus are optional mix-ins you can use when cultivating your own individual taste-specific formula. Since there are so many granola variations in the world, people are bound to have passionate opinions on the right way to make this snack-friendly staple. As a matter of fact, there are some expert foodies that claim the best-tasting granola includes olive oil.

Whether you're making cranberry ginger granola or a more traditional blend with your favorite nuts, you may want to amp up the fat you're using to achieve that ideal level of crunch. Besides suggesting rolled oats and providing tips around any dried fruit additions, cookbook author and founder of Marge granola, Megan Gordon, suggests using olive oil to achieve that piquant flavor profile (via The Kitchn).

As a matter of fact, at one point in time, The New York Times couldn't get enough of Early Bird Foods & Co. granola and the addictive ingredient that kept people longing for more was olive oil. According to the Early Bird website, the three ingredients the company uses to make their scrumptiously toasted granola are salt, olive oil, and love. While the original New York Times writer went on to make their own flavor-specific recipe with the additions of pistachios and apricots (per Times Cooking), the takeaway from trying Early Bird's granola was to create an equal balance of sugar and salt and no other fat besides olive oil did the trick. Olive oil's savory flavor melds all the ingredients into a perfectly toasted, flavorful experience. Besides adding olive oil as a potentially new flavor component, there is more than one reason you may want to add olive oil to your next batch of homemade granola.

There are definitely people in the world that believe granola is merely a glorified overly-sweetened snack food. The New York Times outlines how granola made its purely intentional start back in 1863, but somewhere along the way, in the midst of mass production, many granola-based products became full of saturated fats and sweeteners.

If you ever wondered whether or not granola is considered healthy, Healthline claims a lot of arguments against granola rest on the ingredients used and how much someone is actually eating. Since granola often includes a lot of calorie-rich foods already like seeds and nut butter, you want to be thoughtful when choosing your fat and sweetener of choice.

New York City-based chef and dietician, Jackie Newgent, offers her best suggestions for making healthy granola (via Prevention). When it comes to fats specifically, Newgent details how unsaturated fats like coconut oil and olive oil are your best bet. According to the American Heart Association, olive oil is a monounsaturated fat with several antioxidants that upon regular consumption can help reduce bad cholesterol (LDL) and potentially lessen the instances of Alzheimer's and cardiovascular disease. Not only does the golden plant-based fat provide a complex flavor to your granola, but the health properties associated with olive oil can also improve your health.