Chai-Spiced Granola

I play around with my basic granola recipe pretty often. Mostly, I change up what types of nuts or seeds or dried fruit that I add based on what I have on hand. Sometimes I change up what fruit puree I use. Like with the pumpkin spice granola, which is one of my favorites! A couple times recently, though, I changed up the spice profile. I tried to make it along the lines of chai flavors. It worked great, too! So here's what I did for it. You could change up the spices according to your tastes.

Chai-Spiced Granola

6 cups old-fashioned oats* (not instant)

3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce or other fruit puree (I used peach in this actually)

1/2 - 3/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup honey

1 tsp vanilla (opt)

1-1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp black pepper

Add-ins of choice: nuts, dried cranberries, raisins, other dried fruit bits, coconut, sunflower seeds, etc.

Preheat oven to 325F (160C). Place oats in a large bowl. In a separate smaller bowl, mix together applesauce, brown sugar, honey, vanilla, spices, and salt. Pour over oats and mix together until everything is moistened. Spread evenly onto a large silpat or parchment lined cookie sheet (or 2 smaller ones). If you don't have a silpat or parchment or wax paper to line the pan, you can use foil or just lightly grease it. Bake in oven for about 15-20 minutes. Take out pan. Using a large spatula, flip the granola in batches. Disturb it as little as you can if you like lots of clusters. If you don't care about clusters, just stir it around as much as you please and break it up a bit with your spoon or spatula. At this point, you can also sprinkle in things like coconut, seeds or nuts that would benefit from being toasted in the granola! Place back in oven and bake for about 10-20 more minutes. It will kind of depend on oven temp and how thin you're able to spread the granola on your pan(s). Remove from oven and allow to cool undisturbed. It should continue to crunch up as it cools.  Once cool, break up any clusters you feel are too large. Mix in your chosen add-ins and store in an airtight container. We like ours with yogurt especially!

Notes:

*Here in my city a lot of the oatmeal that says its quick-cooking still looks a lot like instant--small flakes. I usually try to put half and half of oatmeal that has a really full flake and the more broken up kind of quick-cooking ones. Find what works for you! Having some of the smaller flakes helps it clump and cluster a bit better to me. When you make it, you can really stir it up as much as you want and it will still have some little clusters. Adjust brown sugar to desired sweetness. I like about 1/2 a cup but if you like it sweeter, you might go more for 2/3 or 3/4 cup.