This delicious paleo low carb granola recipe whips up in less than 30 minutes. Dairy-free and grain-free. See just how easy it is to make this healthy keto breakfast with my new how-to video!
Cereal. It’s what we all grew up eating for breakfast, right? And when you decide to follow a low carb, paleo or keto diet, you find yourself stumped. You wake up, bleary-eyed, and head downstairs. You pour yourself a cup of coffee, take a few sips and reach for the cupboard. You open it and you suddenly pull up short. Where are the boxes of cereal? They’re not there! Your tired brain can’t quite handle this information so early in the morning. It refuses to believe that you could be so silly as to let yourself run out of that ultimate breakfast food. Why on earth didn’t you put it on the grocery list last time? Oh wait…that’s right. Because cereal and grains aren’t paleo or keto approved. Oh damn. Now what?
Easy Low Carb Granola Recipe
I think you know what I am going to say here. Make your own! Let’s face it, if you are on specialized diet, you can’t just head to the store and pick up convenience foods like cereal and bread. You can sometimes order them online but I always look at the ingredients and think “Well, gee. I could make that!”. I absolutely HATE spending money on something I know I could make easily enough at home. “Easily” being the operative word here. And when it comes to homemade cereal, you can indeed easily make it at home. This low carb Paleo Granola recipe whips up in less than half an hour. So even if you just got up, all bleary-eyed and in need of caffeine, you could have your cereal. Better yet, if you make a big batch, you can store it in the fridge for several weeks.
I’ve made a few different kinds of low carb granola and cereal, and I had one reader thank me for making it without coconut. Guess he wasn’t a coconut fan, but I sure am and it got me pondering a tasty version with some large flaked coconut. And some coconut oil, to really play up that flavour, because I adore it. Then some cacao nibs to add a hint of chocolatey flavour, which pairs so well with coconut. If you haven’t tried cacao nibs (also called cocoa nibs) yet, I think you should. They are chocolatey but not sweet and make a great addition to cookies and cakes, and of course, granola. And they are virtually all fiber, so they make a great low carb food. Just don’t buy them at discount places like Marshalls. I bought a bag that tasted burnt and were just awful. If I hadn’t known what real cacao nibs tasted like, I would have written them off altogether. It’s worth paying a little more for a quality bag if you really want the cacao nib experience!
Paleo Coconut Cacao Nib Granola
Ingredients
- 2 cups nuts almonds, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, etc
- 1 cup mixed seeds sunflower, pepitas, hemp, etc
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1 cup unsweetened flaked coconut
- ⅓ cup Swerve Sweetener
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup coconut oil melted
- 1 egg
- ½ cup cacao nibs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300F and line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of a food processor, combine almonds and other nuts or seeds. Pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some bigger pieces in there too.
- Transfer to a large bowl and add almond flour, flaked coconut, sweetener of choice, and salt. Drizzle with coconut oil and stir to combine.
- Add egg, and toss until mixture begins to clump together. Stir in cacao nibs
- Spread mixture evenly on prepared baking sheet and bake 20 to 30 minutes, stirring frequently, until golden brown.
- Remove and let cool.
Steph says
Granola is my favorite thing for breakfast! Can’t wait to try this.
Rachael Yerkes says
Homemade Granola is the best thing on the planet! I love this one so much!
Andie Thueson says
I love a good granola and this one looks so amazing – And low carb!! That’s a win!
Charlene Coffman says
I made this this morning and added a spoon of your dried cranberries and had with almond milk! What a TREAT!!! I am about to tackle the Gingerbread cake, Earthquake cake, and Cranberry Biscotti. Have already made the stuffing, dinner rolls, Pecan pie and creamy pumpkin pie! You are my favorite!!
Carolyn says
Have fun!
Janine says
This granola recipe was OUTSTANDING! It truly provided me my cereal fix. The only thing 2 things I changed were the addition of cinnamon and vanilla and half Stevia/half Truvia Brown Sugar Blend. I know those on a strict Keto Diet may not want to add the Truvia Brown Sugar.
I do have a question though. How should I store the granola? I’ve put it in jars in my cabinet. Is that ok?
Carolyn says
It should be good there for a week or so.
Jani says
This is ridiculously delicious. How do you stop yourself from gobbling it all up?
Carolyn says
Well it’s also pretty filling so you do need to portion it out. I eat mine with some heavy cream and it’s extra filling that way!
Katelyn Sidley says
Hey Carolyn,
I work for MountainHouse.com and we loved your recipe!
We were just wondering if you would mind letting us use one of your images for our blog post? We won’t republish the recipe, just link to it and include a small blurb. And if you would like us to add anything to our description of your recipe once it’s published, please let us know.
Hopefully, some Mountain House fans will become regular readers of your site!
Thanks,
Katelyn
Carolyn says
Hi Katelyn, as long as you don’t publish the recipe, I am fine with that. Thanks for asking!
Shirley Bond says
This is a super recipe. I use pecans, walnuts, chia, sunflower and pumpkin seeds. I omit the cocoa nibs and add cardamom and cinnamon. Next time I will add some orange zest. Thank you for all your recipes and books.
Janine says
I added pecans, walnuts, almonds and a small amount of cashews. I didn’t think I had any seeds on hand, so I added in a small amount of extra nuts. I forgot about chia seeds! Duh. The cinnamon works really well too! Plus vanilla for me. How can you not add cacao? 😂 Just kidding!
Judi Fikes says
Another comment from me! This recipe is soooo forgiving! You can make it your own! I forgot the 1/2 tsp vanilla and 1/2 tsp cinnamon I sometimes put in…so added it after it came out of the oven…then popped it back in for under 5 min. Thank you, Carolyn for this great “recipe” I now eat it with half a small carton of full fat plain Greek yogurt and a few blueberries! Love! I now have your cookbook!
Erica says
I also am curious about egg sub or if it would work left out. I wanted to make this because my doc has me on a 4-6 week elimination diet including dairy and eggs which is my daily breakfast….then I saw this had egg…must have forgotten. Now wondering if I could modify it?
Debra Huewe says
Hi, I several food sensitivities. I’d like to make this, it sounds delish! I am allergic to eggs. Do you know of any suitable replacements or will it work if I leave it out?
Thank you!
Lisa says
I just made this tonight. I must say, the flavor was amazing. Can’t wait to have it in the morning for breakfast with some almond milk. I added fax and chia seeds as well as a small amount of macadamia nuts.
Debra Beard says
This is one of my favorite recipes Carolyn!!
So perfect for travelling. Just pop it in the fridge whenever you get a chance and it will last for several weeks. Ate this every morning on a 5 week Botswana and Namibia self-drive camping trip and never tired of it!!
Carolyn says
Wow, that is a wonderful testimonial to the cereal! 🙂
Shoshona says
Oh! I should add, I used Sukrin brown sugar substitute, as I’m out of Swerve. Think it added an extra layer of yummy.
Shoshona says
This was so delicious, thank you! My kids were begging for cereal (I think they’re getting tired of eggs every day! 😉 ) and this completely hit the spot. I didn’t have cocoa nibs so omitted those and added some cinnamon. Yum!
Anita says
Hi, do you beat the egg first, or just add it directly to the mixture? This looks amazing! Can’t wait to try it tomorrow!
Carolyn says
Just add it in!
Anita says
Thanks!! Love your blog. Thank you so much for sharing these wonderful recipes.
Judi Fikes says
Just finished making this almost exactly as given…maybe a little different variety of nuts and seeds….I bought a nut mix that was already chopped up a bit…seemed cheaper than buying each one separately…raw…no salt. May experiment with some different nuts for my next batch and vanilla/cinnamon. But wanted to try the original first. I like it! Topped some coconut “yogurt ” I wanted to try with 1/3 cup of the “nut-ola! Yum! I am a cereal gal again! Thank you! It is very flexible…oh, and some wild blueberries on top!
Carolyn says
Glad you like it!
Jill Wedding says
I made this over the weekend and I am in LOVE with this stuff! I miss cereal so much! This is tasty dry as a snack, but this morning I had it with just a little bit of coconut milk. YUM! I made it exactly as written using Pecans, Almonds and Walnuts equally. Thanks for this wonderful recipe!
Kelli says
I’ve made this several times now and it’s excellent! I only have two modifications: 2 eggs rather than one. When I did 2 eggs I got larger clusters of granola. I also added two teaspoons of cinnamon. I really want to try using the zest of an orange next time. Thank you for this recipe! It’s great on yogurt, as a cereal or a snack!!
Mary says
I have made it 🙂 used a combination of Almonds,Macadamias, Pecans, Sunflower,Pumpkin and Hemp seeds. I am adding it to my Chia Pudding in the morning and enjoying it. Used all Xylitol as the sweetener will use the combination with Stevia when I make the recipe again. Thank you it is delicious.